


End of the Line

by CleverCatchphrase



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Genocide Run, Language, No Mercy Route, POV Second Person, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-01 21:25:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5221346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CleverCatchphrase/pseuds/CleverCatchphrase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What do you mean they're not resetting on purpose?" You hiss, your blue eye glowing dangerously as the flower dares to coil around your legs.</p><p>"To fuck with you, of course!" Flowey cackles maniacally. "They knew they couldn't beat you, so instead they're forcing you to live in a timeline where all your friends and loved ones are dead! Oh, how clever! Oh, how <i>cruel!</i> It's brilliant! I love it!"</p><p>No! No, that couldn't be true! But it made far too much sense. This was the kid's last way of getting back at you, and you couldn't stop them this time.</p><p>"SHUT THE HELL UP!" you scream, and bring down a volley of bones from thin air, but the spineless weed simply disappears into the snow.</p><p>"There is one way," the flower whispers somewhere in the snowbanks. "To get out of this time line, out of all this suffering."</p><p>"How," you demand, your fury no less intense, but your desperation piqued. The flower erupts from the slush before you and you stumble back in surprise.</p><p>"Kill yourself," He smiles innocently before his face morphs into something more demonic. "Or better yet, let me do it for you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _"I just want Sans be happy,"_ I think to myself as I write a fan fiction about him becoming so depressed that he's driven to suicide. _"I can't understand. Why can't he just be happy?"_
> 
> This fan fiction is a very bad idea I came up with after watching one too many genocide runs on youtube. I really shouldn't be working on this since I'm trying to finish a totally unrelated fan fiction for NaNoWriMo that I've been neglecting on for over a year, but when your muse says you gotta write depressing shit at two a.m. or you never get to sleep again, what are you gonna do?
> 
> EDIT: CHECK OUT THIS COOL GUY WHO'S BASICALLY TURNING THIS STORY INTO AN AUDIO BOOK! IF YOU'RE TOO BUSY TO READ, THEN LISTEN TO THIS SULTRY VOICE HERE!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AsrsdEh58c

"If we’re really friends, you won’t come back,” you say to the lifeless corpse impaled on your bone spears.

It’s only after you shoot down the soul, shattering it into a dozen pieces, do you dismiss your weapons. The bones vanish into the floor and the body ungracefully falls onto the golden tiles, dark sticky blood pooling out of the wounds you inflicted.

It’s not time to celebrate yet, though. You pull up a sleeve, look at your wrist watch, and begin tracking the time. Sixty seconds. This critical period would determine the fate of the timeline. There was always a ninety-five percent chance of a reload in the first sixty seconds.

Thirty seconds pass. How many times had you done this already? Too many to count and too many to remember, that’s for sure. Vainly hoping the kid would decide to Reset instead of Reload, fighting off your despair every time your watch would stop, back track however long your battle lasted, and then resume ticking forward as the kid yet again, came marching up the hall fresh for a new fight. If it weren’t for the fact your stamina was also refunded to you with each reload, this endless ordeal would have been akin to torture.

Sixty seconds pass and the minute hand on your watch ticks forward six degrees. You breathe a sigh of relief. A Reset was more probable than a reload at this point. Now it was just a matter of when. Unfortunately that decision wasn’t up to you, but data taken from monitoring the space-time continuum tells you it would occur at some point within a half-day.

You stare at the child’s body for a long time, more or less observing and not really thinking of anything in particular. The blood has stopped running and has started to congeal. It stinks of iron and is probably going to stain the floor. Their rusty knife rests on the ground a few centimeters from one of the cold, stiff, dust covered hands and you kick it away in disgust.

Welp. Even though it’s practically pointless with a Reset on the way, you decide Asgore should know what just transpired in his hallway, and head into the garden.

“Da-! Asgore! Please, you’ve got to listen to me!” You hear a terrified voice beg. “A monster is coming and they’re going to murder you! They’ve already murdered everyone else! Please, you’ve got to run!”

“My strange little flower,” says the king. “Why would I run from one of my subjects? I’m sure whatever this monster is troubled with, we can resolve without violence.”

“No! They’re not _that_ kind of monster!” Flowey cries. “They’re-!” Your shadow falls across the little plant and Flowey shrieks in panic. “They’re here!” He screams in terror as he retreats beneath the sea of petals.

Asgore whips around in alarm, only to find you standing by his side.

“Hey,” you say nonchalantly. 

“A-are you the monster the talking flower was trying to warn me about?” Asgore asks in confusion.

“Nah,” you shake your head. “I came to tell you I just took care of them. There’s no need to fear anymore. They aren’t coming back, and everyone’s safe again.” _For the time being_ , you think to yourself but do not say. 

“I-I’m sorry, but I’m still a little confused,” says the king of all monsters. “Can you please elaborate on what just happened?”

“A human fell into the underground hell-bent on turning us all into dust bunnies,” you explain simply. “And I just finished putting a stop to it.”

“Wait,” a small voice says somewhere amongst the flowers, and between the two of you, Flowey reappears. “Are you saying… you _killed_ the human?”

“More or less,” you shrug. Flowey’s usually very emotive face is blank, and you can’t read what’s going on in his thoughts. But before you can think about it, the flower once again vanishes into the flowerbed without a trace.

“Anyway, I thought you should know, in case you weren’t aware this had been happening,” you say, turning back to Asgore. “The whole Underground is in a state of emergency, hiding in their homes and locking every door. If you can reach out to them and let them know the danger has passed, it would do me a big favor. Everyone would feel a lot more reassured hearing the voice of their monarch alive and safe.”

“Yes… yes, you’re right, Asgore agrees. “I’ll see to it immediately.”

“Good to hear. Oh, and sorry about the soul.”

"Soul?"

“The human’s soul,” you clarify. “I destroyed it when I killed them, sorry. I know you just needed one more to break the barrier, but I think that one was a bit too tainted to be any good.”

“O-oh, yes. Th-that is a shame,” Asgore stutters. “How unfortunate. I guess we’ll just have to keep waiting, then. Say, what is your name?” 

“Sans.”

“Well then, thank you, Sans,” the king kneels to you and places one giant furry hand on your shoulder. "You’ve done a great service to your people today. I will make sure your heroism is not forgotten.”

You stiffen a laugh. Oh the irony. If only they knew this was all going to be Reset, and along with it their memories. _Not forgotten, my coccyx,_ you think. Still, you force a smile and try to appear grateful.

“Thanks, Sir, but it’s really no big deal. That human… got my brother, and I couldn’t bear the thought of them hurting anyone else. I was just doing the right thing. I’d rather there not be a lot of fanfare over it. I just… want to be alone for a while.”

“I understand, son,” Asgore says, sympathy in his eyes. “You do what you must.”

“Thanks, Sir,” you say, and then turn to leave the garden. You’re still too tired to jump through space-time and fast travel home, so you just decide to walk.

Back in the judgement hall you’re met with a strange sight. Flowey is inspecting the kid’s body, his face still devoid of emotion. If this were any other timeline, you wouldn’t have wasted an opportunity like this to obliterate this weed after knowing how he has tried to manipulate your brother in the past. But Papyrus is gone for the moment, and with a Reset bound to happen at any given second, you can’t imagine any lasting satisfaction to gain from such pointless violence.

Flowey notices you and winces. He draws away from the body, but keeps his eyes firmly fixed on you. Apparently he remembers some timeline where you weren’t so indifferent to his presence.

“I don’t understand,” he says, voice quivering as you approach. “Why didn’t they reload? What did you do differently?”

“Dunno,” you shrug, insistent on keeping your line of sight on the end of the hallway and not on the body or flower. “We’re more likely going to have a Reset now, so I don’t really stress about the details.”

“A Reset? When?” The flower asks, snaking its way down the corridor behind you, but always at a safe distance.

“Can’t say. Sometime within the next twelve hours at most. That’s the next critical time frame.”

“Oh,” The flower pauses, thinking. “And what if they don’t?”

“Don’t what?” you ask, not looking back. 

“Reset. Or Reload.” Flowey shutters. “What will happen to us next?”

“You tell me,” you say. “If I’ve been in a timeline like that already, then I don’t remember. Not that it matters much. Once this Reset happens, all of this will feel like nothing more than a bad dream. In fact, there’s a good chance the reset will happen in our sleep and we’ll be none the wiser.”

You exit the room without as much as a second glance. The flower does not follow, but you can still feel its anxious eyes on your skull as you make the long, lonely trek all the way back to Grillby’s. So many monsters had been murdered. Everything is too quiet and still. 

Even though you know they were all going to come back none worse for wear, you can’t help but grieve for each pile of dust you spy along the way. And even after the Reset, there was no telling if the kid would go this route again. No, it wasn’t even a matter of “if”, it was “when”. _When_ would the kid go on another killing spree? _When_ would they be finally satisfied of striking everyone down? How many more times would you have to watch your friends die and take forlorn this walk? 

God, you are so tired. 

The bar is still empty when you get back, but you know where Grillby is hiding. You walk over to the fire door and tap a secret code with your pointer finger's second knuckle. A few seconds pass before the bottom corners of the door ignite and twin flames race up its sides, and conjoin at the top before burning out. A moment later the door slides open and Grillby stands before you.

“Sans, I thought I told you to tap the tune of ‘Ring of Fire’, not ‘Disco Inferno’,” He says in that whispering voice of his that sounds simultaneously like the crackling of tinder and the rustling of fabric in the wind.

”Sorry. Forgot,” you say glumly.

“So I take it the threat is no more?” Grillby’s voice susurrates. You nod sullenly and take a seat on the nearest stool. 

“So what’ll you have?” he asks.

“The strongest thing you’ve got,” you say. Grillby slides you a bottle and you take a swig.

 _How many more times do I have to keep doing this?_ you think, and then proceed to drink your fatigue and sorrow away.

XXX

You don’t remember how much you drank, nor do you remember how you got home. You figure it was probably the Reset that made you wind up back in bed, as you’re not the type to imbibe until you black out. Usually.

God, your head is killing you. Hangovers normally didn’t last through time travel. Maybe you drank so much you’ve become intoxicated across time lines? Bleh, It hurts too much to think straight, so you stop trying to figure out this mystery and instead try to remember where you last saw the aspirin.

With bleary eyes you look at your bedside clock. It’s past noon. That’s odd, why didn’t Papyrus wake you? He usually urges you out of bed no later than five a.m., and if he wasn’t actively dragging you out from under your covers, then the smell of spaghetti on fire and threatening to burn the house down would have you on your feet in an instant.

You roll out of bed, slide your feet into your slippers, pull your jacket over your arms, and shamble over to his door. 

“Hey, bro, what gives?” You yawn. “You never let me sleep this late. You not feeling well, or something?” You twist the knob and peak inside. That’s strange; he’s not in his room. And now that you think about it, you don’t smell burning noodles either.

“Pap?” you call down the stairs, but there’s no reply. An uneasy feeling begins to spread through your bones. Something about this scenario is off… No, something about this scenario is _wrong_.

 _No need to panic,_ you think to yourself. _Maybe he’s just out training with Undyne already._

“Papyrus, you home?” you say out loud again as you enter the kitchen, but you're only answered with silence. Carefully, you scan the room, trying to figure out what felt so out of place, when your eyes fall on the calendar. That’s funny, why is today’s date… already… crossed… off.

If you had a heart, it would have stopped beating in that instant.

“Oh no,” you breathe before rushing to the front door. You throw it open and make a mad scramble for the daily newspaper on your porch. With trembling hands, you look at the date. It reads Wednesday the 16th. 

Bold text on the front page grabs your eye. The headline reads; “HUMAN MENACE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE. UNDERGROUND SAFE ONCE MORE.”

“No… no, no, no, no, no,” your entire body shakes in horror as you finally understand what’s going on. 

It’s _tomorrow_. The critical period had passed, but the kid did not come back. The timeline had not been Reset.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All aboard the pain train to suffer city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a small edit to the last paragraph in the first chapter so this chapter flows just a tiny bit better. (basically I removed the "eveyone is still dead" sentence so it sounds more like Sans realizes it later in here, rather than earlier before)

"Swimming in a river in Egypt," "a citizen of the fifty-first state"; both could accurately describe you at the moment. To put it simply, you were in denial.

There had to have been some mistake, some error, some miscalculation. There just _had_ to be! You let the newspaper fall back in the snow. There’s one last place you dare to check out of desperation to confirm your fears. Using a silver key, you unlock the secret door at the back of your house, hidden by bushes and tree branches. You enter your workshop, and switch on the lights. Cobwebs and lint coat the projects you had long ago abandoned- all except for one.

In the corner, covered by a tarp is a massive machine. _The_ machine. It’s been broken for eons, and while you never could fully repair it, you did manage to get it to do one thing; monitor timelines.

You pull of the sheet without sensitivity, and lay your eyes on the complicated contrivance. A keyboard reveals itself at the ready, then, following a sequence of steps only you understood, you enter in a series of commands, adjust the parameters, and define your variables. Panels covered in hundreds of lights, doodads and widgets appear on both sides of the keyboard, and a computer screen with numerous line graphs illuminates above you.

Knobs are twisted, switches are flipped, and buttons are pressed in an order so complex it would have made any on-looker’s head spin. At last you hit enter, and the machine runs a diagnosis.

You wait. The machine hums away, unhurried as it works out the calculations and information you supplied it with. You drum your phalanges against your arms, trying to fight down the ever increasing dread that’s stirring in your core. This was your last hope. If this machine couldn’t find any deviations or anomalies in the timeline, then…

You force your mind not to think about it. There just _had_ to be a mistake. _There just had to_.

After what feels like eternity, the machine lets out shrill buzz and prints out a status report and line graph. Your figurative heart skips a beat and you timidly take the paper.

You carefully read it once, and then again, and then a third time because your mind refuses to believe what your eyes are showing you, and you can’t comprehend what this means.

All the signs are clear. The timeline is stable and linear. There are no mistakes, no abnormalities, no _nothing_. The kid really didn’t Reset.

“Why?” you whisper with trembling fingers. “ _Why?_ ”

As a scientist, you were trained to speak and think in terms of “most likely” and “improbable” when it came to discussing the probability of events, but now… Who were you kidding? “Reloads were most likely to occur within sixty seconds of a ‘Game Over’,” “Resets occurred most frequently within twelve hours.” What bullshit. A Reset after twelve hours wasn’t _improbable,_ it was _unheard of._ And now you had no idea what this meant for you and your timeline. Since the Reset didn’t happen when you expected, you might as well admit that it’s not going to happen _at all._

“Maybe… maybe the machine is wrong,” you say out loud to yourself- lying to yourself. “I never did manage to completely fix it.”

You can practically feel yourself drowning in that Egyptian river.

As if knocked into a daze, you re-cover the contraption with the tarp and shuffle out of the room. You flip the light switch and lock the door behind you before trudging off in some meaningless direction. Your body is on autopilot, numb to the world around you.

You walk and you walk with no destination in mind, no goal or objective or clue what to do next. The thoughts in your skull are an endless loop of questions and anxiety, futilely clawing for answers that aren’t there.

You’re almost at the border between Snowdin and Waterfall when you’re pelted with a snowball from behind.

The impact knocks you forward, thankfully into a fluffy snow drift which cushions your fall. You don’t rush to get up, though. Instead you resign the notion all together and stay face down in the slush.

“Explain to me,” a wavering voice attempts to sound aggressive. “I don’t understand what’s happening, but I know _you_ do! You said there would be a Reset, but there wasn’t! We’re all still here, in _this_ timeline!”

You turn your head to the voice and focus one orbital on the small yellow flower a few feet behind you. He’s coiled around another snowball and violently shivering, but whether it’s from fear or from the cold, you cannot tell.

“This is all your fault!” he accuses. “I still can’t restart or reload any of _my_ saves, and the kid didn’t come back like you said they would! You broke the timeline!”

“The timeline’s not broken,” you spit. “I even have fresh graphs to prove it. I don’t know _what’s_ going on.”

“Well figure it out and fix it!” Flowey shouts, and launches another snowball at you. Annoyance flares in your chest. With one twitch of a finger, you conjure a bone to intercept it in midair, exploding the projectile into a flurry of powder.

“Fuck off,” you tell the flower, pushing yourself out of the snow. “I’ve got my own shit to deal with.”

“Not until you fix this, bone bag! This isn’t right!”

Like hell you needed anyone to tell you this whole situation “wasn’t right”. You _knew_ it wasn’t right, but what the hell did he expect you to do? You were just as powerless as he was! In fact, you were even more so, because you never possessed the ability to restart timelines to begin with. The most you could do was bend the properties of space to some degree. Even then, it wasn’t technically considered time travel because you could never go back, or significantly forward; just make the distances between two places shorter.

“You can’t reload any of _your_ saves, you say?” You ask, wiping the snow off your clothes. “Then does that mean,” you snap your fingers and a line of bones materializes above you. “If I kill you right here, _you won’t come back?_ ”

Flowey’s eyes go wide and he retreats into the snow faster than your attack can meet him. You grind your teeth in disappointment. The damn weed is untouchable when he’s in the ground.

You kick the snowdrifts in frustration, half-hoping you’ll find him, when suddenly your foot catches on something in the ice. You tug your foot harder, sadistically praying you’ve snagged his stem, but what you unearth is neither green or organic. It’s a familiar piece of red fabric… it’s… it’s-

_Papyrus’ scarf._

For a split second you’re dumbfounded, but then something clicks in your head and a horrible realization hits you all at once. You realize Papyrus was _still gone_ \- and with no chance of a Reset _he’s not coming back._

The revelation strikes you like a freight train. You collapse to your knees, gasping for breath. How did you not realize this until just now? No, wait- it was actually all quite simple why you didn't notice. Up until this moment, your greatest fear was losing the happiness of a good ending to the greedy claws of a Reset, but at least in that scenario everyone was _still alive_. Hell, even in the face of Genocide, when you woke up every day knowing you and your friends would die a thousand times over, trusting in an unquestioned Reset at least meant you knew you would all come back a thousand and one. 

But now… Now there were no more Resets. This time everyone who was slain was gone _permanently._ You have never even conceived the idea of a timeline were the deaths would stick.

You fall on your hands, despair and anguish threatening to overwhelm you. Tears fall from your sockets and onto the red cloth. He’s not coming back. Your brother is not coming back…

“No, oh God, no…” 

With trembling hands, you pull the scarf from the snow. There are still some silvery spots of dust on it, and you clutch it to your rib cage in desperation.

“Papyrus, I’m… I’m…”

You don’t know what you are. Sorry? Sad? Alone? No, those aren’t the words you’re looking for. Was it Lost? Helpless? Useless without him? Closer, but not quite.

 _Nothing._

Ah, there it is. It’s all so clear now.

“Papyrus… what am I going to do without you? I’m... I'm nothing on my own,” you cry bent over in a ball and hugging the scarf like a lifeline, before falling apart into a devastated wreck. No one sees you- there's no one left _alive_ to witness you come undone, and the only thing to muffle your sobs it the gently falling snow, silent and indifferent.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of the five stages of grief, you're stuck in depression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're not aware, I'm working on two fan fictions at once for NaNoWriMo. This means I'm writing AND typing close to five thousand words a day. Just today I started getting wrist pains and like any writer, my immediate fear is that i'm developing carpel tunnel. What I'm trying to say is, I'm going to slow down writing and give my hand a break, even if that means I won't win NaNoWriMo. I don't want to hurt myself. Thanks for understanding.

Your perception of time had always been a bit trivial. Despite your outward demeanor, you actually did try to live in the moment- mostly because keeping your memories straight wasn’t worth the effort, and you found no pleasure in reminiscing when the flash backs were violent or not your own.

With feelings and impressions of old Saves constantly clouding your head, it was futile trying to sort out which things happened when, or keeping tally of how many times a specific event had already played out. But now, stuck in a dead-end timeline with no hope of change anytime soon? The progression of time might as well be completely meaningless as far as you’re concerned.

It was a struggle to get yourself back home. Guilt and grief dragged you down like quicksand. Hell, the entire mountain over your head could have come crashing down on you and it still wouldn’t have been as heavy as your soul felt.

When you did finally manage to get home, you only made it as far as the couch before collapsing again into another complete and utter fucking mess, and you haven’t moved since. How many days had passed? One? Ten? It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore.

 _Why did you wait until the very end to intervene? Why didn’t you stop them sooner?_ you berate yourself, idly feeling the texture of Papyrus' scarf between boney fingers. You wear it like a security blanket, though it acts more like a reminder of your failure rather than a source of comfort. _You could have prevented this. You could have saved so many lives. But no, you kept giving the kid the benefit of the doubt, kept believing they could have been good if they tried. You let this happen. This is all your fault._

Your house is cold and dark. You can’t remember if it’s just because you didn’t turn on the lights or if it’s because you missed a utility bill payment. Frankly, you can’t be bothered to care what the reason is.

It’s so deathly quiet and still. Only the faint, rhythmic ticking of a wall clock and your periodic sighs break the silence. It's the perfect environment to eternally torment yourself with an endless stream of self-deprecating thoughts.

_Your brother is dead for good because of you._

You exhale for the hundredth time. You know sitting in the gloom like this and wallowing in self-pity can’t be good for your head, but it’s too much of an effort to do anything else. So instead you force yourself to sleep.

You’ve been sleeping a lot more lately, even by your standards; one part because you had nobody to stop you, the other because you’d rather stay in unconsciousness, where cold reality was not welcome and hard truths did not have to be faced. Still, despite your best attempts, you couldn’t stay asleep forever, and each time you awoke a fleeting, desperate hope would choke you. Maybe _this_ time when you opened your eyes the world would be Reset. Maybe _this_ time everyone would be alive again. Maybe _this _time everything back to normal.__

But no- it never was, and each time you awoke every unpleasant emotion ripped into you anew.

_Knock, knock, knock._

Was someone at your door or were you just imagining it. Whatever the answer, you don’t bother to leave the couch.

_Knock, knock, knock, knock._

The sound is louder this time, more insistent. It drags your mind out of the fog and back into the present. 

_Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock!_

Giving in, you pry yourself from the sofa and inch your way to the front door at a snail’s pace. When you open it, you’re greeted by a shivering yellow dinosaur.

“D-d-delivery f-for M-m-mister Snowdrake S-s-senior,” she says through chattering teeth, and hands you a small box. It takes you a few seconds to comprehend what’s going on.

“Sorry. Wrong house,” you tell the monster. “Snowdrake lives up the road.”

Realizing her mistake, the reptilian practically collapses into a puddle of defeat. “O-oh God, I d-did it again. I-I k-k-keep m-messing up. I-I c-can’t keep d-doing this! I’ll n-n-never finish!”

Whatever bit of empathy you have left stirs at the sight of her tears. _Well don’t just stand there you useless bag of bones,_ your mind orders. _Do something!_

“Hey... uh, you look cold,” You say, rubbing one hand on your neck. “You... want to come in?”

“O-oh, th-thank you,” the dinosaur sniffles, and you side step as she shuffles in, dragging a large mail sack behind her.

The florescent kitchen lights are painful for your eyes after sulking so long in the dark. You boil a pot of coffee and poor some for you and your guest.

“So, uh, why is a cold-blooded reptile delivering mail in Snowdin?” you try to make small talk.

“I’m Asgore’s royal scientist,” she sighs, holding her coffee mug and absorbing its warmth. “I, um, placed security cameras all throughout the Underground for, um, scientific purposes, but as a side effect I ended up learning where everybody lives.”

She sips her coffee and you take a seat across from her, hoping she’ll elaborate.

“B-because I monitor all the activity in the Underground, I-I ended up documenting a lot of the, uh, slaughter, that happened over the last few weeks. Asgore asked me to identify and collect each victim’s dust with my tapes and return everyone to their families so they could all have proper funerals. It’s taken me a long time to match up and recover everyone.” She nods to her bag, which you infer is filled with more small boxes of dust. “I still have a lot of deliveries to make.” 

“That’s a lot to ask of one person,” you say. The dinosaur nods and looks into her drink. 

“But all the royal guards were assassinated. I’m pretty much all Asgore has left. I wish I had never installed those cameras. I had to rewatch them die so many times…”

The both of you sit in silence, looking anywhere except at each other. A long minute passes. She is first to break the awkward tension.

“Say… a-are you Sans?”

You blink and look at her. How did she know you?

“Yeah… have we met before?” you ask.

“No… there was an article in the newspaper a few days ago describing the monster who ended the human’s rampage of terror. They said it was a skeleton, and you fit the description.”

“Yeah… that was me…” you mutter.

“I’m honored to meet you,” the dinosaur says. “I’m Alphys.”

“Honored? Why?”

“Asgore talks you up nonstop,” Alphys explains. “He and the rest of the Underground consider you a hero.”

“Feh,” you slouch in your chair and sink into your coat. A sick feeling sprouts in your stomach and your throat catches. “Some hero I am. I couldn’t even save my own brother from that devil.”

“I’m so sorry,” Alphys whispers. “I know what you’re feeling.”

Irrational enmity stabs you in the chest. She knew how you felt? How could she possibly understand how you feel? Nobody could understand this, and the thought that she would have the audacity to give you empty apologies fills you with emotion stronger than you’ve felt in the past week. You open your mouth, one breath away from rebuking her for her false sympathy when you notice her fiddling with something around her neck- it’s a necklace with two small vials of dust on it, tinted pink and blue. Oh...

 _Insensitive bastard,_ you reprimand yourself, immediately letting go of your anger with a sigh. _You think you’re the only one who’s lost loved ones?_  


“As the royal scientist I was supposed to be researching a way to break the barrier,” Alphys tells you. “But instead I wasted my time with frivolous cartoons and comic books when I could have been finding a solution for our freedom. All my friends… Undyne… Mettaton…” Her voice hitches and she covers her hands to her face. “I should have tried to stop that human before anyone else got hurt! But no, instead I just hid behind walls, too scared to do anything more than save my own skin. Now I can’t help but wonder; ‘How far would I have gotten in my research if I hadn’t been so torpid?’ ‘Could I have found a way for us to escape the Underground before this all happened?’ I bet I could have. We could have avoided all of this if it wasn’t for me. This is all my fault.”

Man, you could relate to that. Now it was you're turn to bite back saying "I know how you feel". 

Alphys cries quietly, tears rolling into her coffee. You keep your eyes down, having nothing to say to console her.

“I’m sorry,” she sniffs after a while. “You probably didn’t want to hear all that.”

“S’alright,” you mumble absently.

“Thank you for the coffee. I should really be on my way.” Alphys hefts the mail bag over her shoulder and you see her out. 

_Here’s to hoping you recover from this faster than I do,_ you pray for her in your head. You shut the door and return to the couch, but it doesn’t quite feel the same. Be it accident or fate, your conversation with Alphys changed something inside you. You think, maybe, you’re starting to… feel a little again?

Yes… yes, you think you are. In fact you know exactly what you feel- hungry. It’s been a few days since you last forced yourself to eat. 

Leaving the couch once more, you decide to go to Grillby’s.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *discovers the song "Dying Inside" by Gary Barlow and listens to it on repeat forever* SANS, IS THIS YOU?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally twice as long, but I cut it in half so all the chapters stay roughly the same length. (Also because I'm a whore for Hits and Kuddos, and the longer I drag this out, the more of each I'm likely to get). Next chapter will be posted tomorrow~

You don’t know what you were expecting to find at Grillby’s. Maybe the miraculous revival of your slain friends? Perhaps the easy-going and carefree atmosphere of better days? Or maybe you were just searching for something familiar to distract yourself with, to get lost in. But the mood when you enter is too somber, the air to melancholy, and all the patrons, far fewer than it should have been, were searching for solace at the bottom of a bottle instead of enjoying good times with friends. You don’t know what you were looking for, but this definitely wasn’t it.

Your entrance doesn’t go unnoticed. From one of the booths, a monster recognizes you and calls out. “Hey, it’s Sans! Look everyone, Sans is here!”

Drunken eyes open and heads turn. Suddenly you’re the center of attention. Everybody’s looking at you with sad, weak smiles. Your stomach crawls. This doesn’t feel right.

 _Stop it,_ you think, observing each fake grin. _Stop smiling at me. Don’t you dare pretend like everything’s alright._

Your eyes dart about the room in a frenzy, frantically trying to avoid those insincere, empty smiles while at the same time you fight the urge to turn around and leave on the spot. Doing so would raise suspicion and you’d rather not deal with people’s questions.

You catch sight of Grillby at the bar and lock onto him. He doesn’t have a mouth to smile with, and in this moment he’s your only escape. Shutting out everything else, you make a bee line for him.

People chat to you while you pass.

“Hey Sans,” “We read about Papyrus in the obituaries,” “Sorry Sans,” “We’re sorry to hear what happened.”

You ignore them, pretend they don’t exist and that their words are just white noise. It’s one thing to constantly remind yourself of your loss, but it’s another thing entirely to hear it from someone else. It became too personal, too real, too hard to continue denying the truth when someone else said it.

Grillby watches you in silence as you take your seat, and you can’t help but wonder what hollow words of sympathy he has for you.

“Sans you look like shit.”

You smirk involuntarily. Ah, good old Grillbz. You can always trust him to tell it to you straight.

“I haven’t seen you around in over a week. Where have you been?”

You shrug instead of answering and order your usual; a plain bottle of ketchup.

“People were concerned about you,” Grillby tells you as he hands you the condiment. 

“Mm,” is all you can reply.

“Sans, you are aware it’s okay to share your problems with others, right? We’re all still recovering from what happened. We understand what you’re going through. You shouldn’t keep things bottled up. No pun intended.”

“My problems are my problems, Grillbz.” You say, squeezing out the last of the ketchup. “No one needs to worry about me.”

Grillby replaces your empty bottle with a fresh one and watches you drain the thing in one go. Man, exactly how long WAS it since you last ate? You were hungrier than you thought.

“So… are you going to the memorial service?” The living inferno asks.

“Memorial service?”

“King Asgore is going to hold a tribute of remembrance tomorrow, to say our final goodbyes to all those lost. An invitation was mailed to everyone.” At the sight of your sour expression Grillby goes on. “You should come with me. Even if you don’t find closure, you know what they say about misery and its love for company.”

With narrowed eyes you search the flame’s head for any signs that he’s quipping at your pain, but find none. That’s the problem with Grillby sometimes. His voice is as deadpan has his featureless face.

“I’ve got other commitments,” you mutter.

“Sans, you and I both know that’s not true.”

“So? What are you going to do about it?”

“If you do not agree to come with me, then I will personally burn down your house and drag you there. I will not allow you to push away those who are trying to help you.”

You groan and exasperation and resign. As an experienced bouncer, there was no arguing with Grillby once he had said his piece. He probably would burn your house down if you didn’t go along with him. “Fine. I’ll meet you here tomorrow at eight.”

XXX

The memorial service was as every bit as depressing as you could have hoped for it to be.

Monsters gathered in the courtyard before the King’s palace, all dressed in black and paying their respects in silence. King Asgore stood from a balcony on high and recited each name of the fallen and who they were survived by. There were a lot of names and not all of them had successors.

Once Papyrus was named, you kept your head down and kind of tuned out. Hearing him called here felt like the last strike of a chisel on a marble sculpture. He was gone and everybody heard it. It was official, final, set in stone. You couldn’t pretend or deny it didn’t happen anymore.

“Mettaton is survived by his cousin, Napstablook,” King Asgore says, reaching the end of his list. “And lastly, if you could find it in your hearts, please spare a prayer for the human child, who died down here lost and alone.”

 **What.**

Your eyes snap open, but you keep your gaze fixed on your feet.

“Though they had gone astray, may their troubled soul find peace in the next life. Thank you all for coming today. I now bring this ceremony to a close.”

With that, people begin to file out and vanish into the streets. You remain rooted to the spot as they flow past you. Grillby places a searing hand on your shoulder, but you don’t even register it. Your entire world has gone dark and it’s colder than absolute zero.

When you do manage to look up you’re the last one in still in the courtyard, and you just barely catch a glimpse of Asgore’s robe disappearing into the hallway from the balcony. Gritting your teeth, you pinch the fabric of space-time and go after him. 

In the blink of an eye, you find yourself in the last corridor, a hallway length behind your king.

“How dare you.” Your voice quivers from betrayal. “How. _Fucking._ DARE you ask those grieving monsters to mourn for the very _demon_ that killed their loved ones!”

Asgore stops in his tracks and sighs. His head and shoulders droop but he does not turn around.

“The loss of a life is tragic, no matter whose it is,” he says without looking at you.

“That’s a load of shit and you know it.” Your heart is such a torrent of outrage and dolor that you can barely keep your voice from cracking. “Just because someone dies doesn’t mean all the wrongs they’ve done in their life are instantly nullified. Killing the devil doesn’t turn him back into an angel. It just gives you a dead corpse and all of Hell running rampant.”

“But forgiveness is the first step on the road to recovery, Sans.”

“MURDERERS DON’T DESERVE TO BE FORGIVEN!”

“Not even us, Sans?” Asgore asks you, looking over his shoulder. The golden light shining through the stained glass illuminates his tired eyes, and in them you glimpse Asgore’s entire past. In his eyes you see all his past battles with each of the six previous humans that had fallen before this one. In his eyes you can see the grief and shame he hides by claiming what he does is “for the greater good”. In his eyes you see your own reflection- the very monster who cut down the human that had murdered so many others. 

_If you had stopped that human sooner, you could have prevented all this,_ your thoughts remind you. _You might as well have been the one murdering everyone since you stood by and let it happen._

You realize Asgore’s question wasn’t rhetorical when he continues to wait for an answer.

“No,” your voice breaks, followed by the rest of you. “Especially not us. You and I are the last people who deserve to be forgiven for letting things get this far.”

You hug yourself tightly, desperate to stop shaking and fighting to stay on your feet. Asgore turns to face you, and you can clearly read his intentions. He’s going to come over here to comfort you and say to you “It wasn’t your fault,” and “Everything’s going to be all right.” He was going to tell you everything you didn’t want to hear right now, especially coming from him.

You swiftly turn on your heals and briskly walk away.

“Sans-"

You do not heed him. Instead you screw your eyes shut and will yourself to be as far away from him and this castle as you can possibly get. 

You duck behind a pillar, and by the time Asgore reaches it, you’re already a world away.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AND NOW, THE PART YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR, FEATURING THE SPECIAL EDITION, HD DIRECTOR'S CUT! (because AO3 only allows you to put 1250 characters in the summary boxes)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The knock knock joke in this chapter is my magnum opus. It's like all the planets and stars fucking aligned to make a joke so perfectly plausible and in character. I want you all to take a moment to appreciate it.

“Knock, knock…”

You should have known the farthest point from Asgore’s Castle would be the giant wooden doors at the end of Snowdin’s forest.

“Knock, knock….”

You hadn’t been out here since you witnessed the human walk through them and shook their hand. That felt like a lifetime ago now…

“Knock, knock…”

Your joke-telling friend hasn’t responded to any of your rapping. Knowing the human came from here, you have a sinking suspicion why.

“Knock… knock…”

If you knew the definition of insanity was repeating the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, then why did you keep trying this?

“…Knock… Knock…”

You didn’t even have a joke lined up anyway.

You let your hand fall. Sitting with your back to the door, you hug your legs to your rib cage and put your forehead on your knee caps. You wish you hadn’t come here.

You sulk in the snow, the same endless thoughts running in circles. _If you had stopped them as soon as they came through this door, everyone would still be alive. You could have forced them to reset before things got this far. You might as well be responsible for this massacre since you didn’t do anything sooner. You don’t deserve to be forgiven._

_”Knock,knock.”_

The sudden voice takes you off guard and you jump. You can’t believe it- someone’s behind the door. Could it be? Is… is _she_ really still alive? Hope and elation course through your body.

“Who’s there?” you ask, heart racing. 

_”Donut.”_

“Donut who?”

_”Donut you have anything better to do?”_

Wait a minute-

Right as you put the pieces together, there he is, wriggling his way up through the snow, his stem wrapped around a pink-glazed spider donut.

A vicious bitterness consumes you at the mere sight of his yellow petals and smug, donut-chewing grin. How dare he have the gall to impersonate _her_ to you like that. You weren’t going to stand for his presence. _Not this time._

You lunge without warning, but Flowey is swift and slippery. Eye flaring blue, you summon your Gaster Blasters and strike the earth with everything you’ve got.

The flower dives, dodges, evades and eludes every single one of your attacks, always popping up and disappearing at the last possible second. But he’s not careless. You can tell he knows your range down to the millimeter. He’s doing this on purpose. _He’s toying with you._

You’re winded far sooner than you ought to be. Damn, all your recent moping has left you seriously out of shape.

“Are you quite finished?” Flowey asks with a haughty smile.

You’re too busy heaving to answer, but you keep your glowing left eye fixed on him.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”

“What do you want?!” you bark.

“Relax, bone boy! I’m just here to talk.”

You watch his every move with suspicion. This isn’t the same scared and confused flower that was pestering you a few weeks prior. This was the old conniving, scheming weed that often tried to deceive your brother. He had rebounded back to being manipulative- back to being dangerous.

“You see, while you’ve been busy mooning around and feeling sorry for yourself, I’ve been doing a looooot of thinking. You know, about the timeline and Resets? And I’ve come up with some pretty interesting realizations! I have come to a conclusion with two hypotheses about our little… timeline dilemma.”

You watch with caution as Flowey swims through the snow, slowly spiraling towards you.

“My first theory is that you _did_ somehow manage to permanently break the timeline when you killed the human and it’s all your fault we’re still stuck here. My other theory is a lot more fun.” He lets his words hang, taunting you, teasing you. His smile is begging you to ask him for more, but you refuse to give him that satisfaction and stay quiet. When he realizes you’re not going to play along he goes on.

“My second theory… is that the human is not resetting _on purpose._ ”

A jolt of terror shoots down your spine.

“What do you mean they’re not resetting on purpose?” you hiss, your blue eye glowing dangerously as the flower dares to coil around your legs.

“To fuck with you, of course!” Flowey cackles maniacally. “How many times did you strike them down in the judgement hall? Fifty? A hundred times? They knew they couldn’t beat you, so instead now they’re forcing you to live in a timeline where all your friends and loved ones are dead! Oh, how clever! Oh, how _cruel!_ It’s brilliant! I love it!”

“No! You don’t know that!” you shout in absolute rage. “What makes you so sure!?”

Flowey’s voice drops to a whisper and he looks you dead in the eye. “Because… it’s what I would do if I knew it would make you suffer like this.”

No! No, it couldn’t be true! There was no way to know-no proof! But at the same time it made far too much sense- this was the kid’s last way of getting back at you, and there was nothing you could do to stop it this time. The flower giggles uncontrollably at the look of horror on your face.

“SHUT THE HELL UP!” you scream. You swing your arm wildly and bring down a volley of bones from thin air. You assault the ground with wave after wave of femora and humeri, but the soulless pansy simply disappears into the earth.

“Think about it,” The flower laughs from within the permafrost. “It was a similar situation with the other six humans. They could all Reload and Restart as many times as they wanted and I couldn’t do a thing about it. But eventually each one of them died and died and died until they got tired of trying, so they each gave up and decided to _stay_ dead, letting Asgore take their soul, and letting _me_ control the Resets again from their last Save Point.

“But this human, the seventh one, they’re far more determined than the others. The fact that I still can’t Restart yet means they’re still in control. They’re sitting back and watching you crumble into little irreparable pieces!” 

“No, they can’t watch anything. They’re _dead_.”

“They’re _waiting_ ,” Flowey corrects you. Following his voice, it seems he’s still circling around you, never staying in one place for long lest you might peg him. “For you to reach your limit, the point of no return, the end of the line. And then, when you’re battered and broken, they’ll Reload and strike you down with ease.”

You become aware that you’re shivering, but it’s not from Snowdin’s cold. Your stomach churns with nausea.

“There is one way,” the flower whispers somewhere in the snowbanks. “To get out of this timeline, out of all this suffering.”

“How,” you demand, your fury no less intense, but your desperation piqued. The flower erupts from the slush right before you and you stumble back in surprise.

“Simple. Kill yourself,” he smiles innocently before his face morphs into something far more demonic. Thorny tendrils spring from the earth and ensnare you. Too late you realize that all the circling he was doing was actually a trap being laid. “Or better yet, let me do it for you.”

He howls with laughter and squeezes the air out of you. Tighter and tighter the vines constrict, threatening to crack every single one of your bones.

"Oh, how exciting!" He jeers. "Never in any of my Saves have I been able to destroy _you_. Too bad I'll only get to do it once. Let's savor the moment!"

Fear and panic threaten to paralyze you. You struggle to fight them back and call upon every last ounce of magic in your body. With no holding back, you set yourself alight with fire magic, engulfing your entire being in blue flame.

The flower shrieks and drops you instantly, recoiling its burning body into the snow drifts. After a few gulps of air you slowly push yourself up onto your hands and knees and carefully check yourself over for any fractures or cracks.

“Don’t think you’ve seen the last of me, Sans,” you hear a voice say directly beneath you. “The sooner you die, the sooner the human will be satisfied and Reset, letting all of us go back to the way things are supposed to be. By my hand or your own, you WILL die. _I’ll make sure of it._ ”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And thus we begin the spiraling decent as things go from bad to worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was rewritten on December 7th! The original chapter pacing was awkward, all over the place, and just didn't sound good. 
> 
> HUGE thanks to AO3 user RandomTiger for providing me with a bunch of great tips and ideas for me to help it flow better!

You stay home for a week.

It wasn’t Flowey’s threats that unnerved you. Not even his attempted murder had shaken you up that bad. It was just how _plausible_ his hypothesis was that got under your metaphorical skin.

_Could the kid really be holding out? Are they really just waiting? No, that’s impossible. Time stops for them unless they Reset or Reload… Right? There’s no evidence they can watch the events occurring in a timeline post ‘Game Over’. We have no way of knowing what was going on inside their head when they died, so we can’t prove this was their intent._

And yet… you couldn’t disprove it either.

 _Well, there is one way,_ an ugly little voice whispered in the back of your head. _But you’d only get to test it once and if you succeed, you won’t be able to do any more trials after that_.

You stomp the thought down, burry it in the farthest part of your mind and seal it away behind a dozen mental locks. No. There was no way you would even consider the idea. That’s just what that flower wants you to do. That weed was just lying to mess with you. He _had_ to be messing with you.

_And yet…_

Sleep became hard to come by. Half the time your mind was too busy trying to solve a puzzle that had no solution, creating and disproving dozens of possible explanations again and again by the thousands, and the other half you were listening for the rustle of leaves come to do you in in the middle of the night.

Too wound up to get any significant rest, everything you did sleep, your dreams became plagued with visions of laughing yellow flowers and red human eyes silently watching you, waiting to see what you’d do next. At one point you dreamt you were being strangled by malicious vines and you woke in a cold sweat, only to find that all your tossing and turning had caused your brother’s scarf to twist around your neck like a noose.

You gave up sleeping entirely after that.

 _The weed’s just trying to unnerve you,_ you reassure yourself without much success. _He’s tried to trick Papyrus before, and now he’s trying to trick you. He’s never been able to kill you in the past, so he still can’t now. Don’t let his words get to you._

You know it’s ridiculous to be paranoid because of a dumb plant, but you can’t help it. Agitation and constant unease seemed to be the only emotions you have left after having cried out all your tears of grief and regret. Even thinking of Papyrus would no longer elicit the stab of pain in your soul you had grown used to feeling.

You didn’t want to admit it, or maybe you just wrote it off as part of the paranoia, but you were getting worried about the hollow feeling that was slowly growing inside of you.

“Come on, Sans, think. What would Papyrus tell you to do?” You quiz yourself, desperate to keep yourself occupied so you didn’t have to think about it.

“He would… he would tell you to quit lazing around and go back to work,” you answer.

And so you do, or at least you try. Your concession stand in Hotland ended up going out of business due to lack of customers, and you were laid off from your sentry post in Waterfall for nodding off on the job. You’re pretty sure you would have been fired all together if they caught you doing the same at your post in Snowdin, but luckily for you the station was too far out in the forest for them to care.

It’s not like you were intentionally sleeping on the job any more than usual. In fact, you had tried to pick up more shifts just so you could stay out of the house and keep your mind distracted, but it wasn’t helping that you renounced sleeping all together.

The anxiety the flower gifted to you ended up being a double-edged sword. On one hand it kept you too high-strung to sleep, jumping at shadows and ready to fire at so much as a twig snapping. On the other hand it left you so exhausted that the fight to stay awake would end up manifesting into a physical war with yourself. Even simple walks around town became impossible to do when your first reaction to everyone who caught you unawares was borderline panic, and before long this deadly combination of stress and no sleep began to make you hallucinate.

You were pretty sure the flashes of blue and purple striped sweaters you saw disappearing out of the corner of your eyes weren’t real, but the glimpses of yellow flowers slipping into the earth behind you faster than you could double-take concerned you. You know that weed’s been following you ever since that day. You just don’t know how close.

Weeks pass by the time things finally get too out of hand. After months of constantly looking over your shoulder, every last one of your nerves is fried. The fear you had been using to fuel your body finally runs out and you’re going on nothing but fumes. Worst of all, without the paranoia to cling to, the empty feeling begins to make itself at home inside of your and it’s inviting over some unwelcome thoughts.

_If you don’t feel anything, you might as well-_

No. You cut the thought before you even have a chance to finish it. Becoming numb to anxiety had been letting them sneak in your head more and more frequently, and it’s only getting worse. It’s getting harder and harder to distract yourself, but you’re not ready to throw in the towel just yet.

With a grunt, you leave your house and decide to go to Grillby’s. It’s been a while, and you have a serious need for a change in scenery. 

XXX

The atmosphere in the restaurant takes you off guard. You haven’t been in here since the memorial service, always claiming you were too busy working as your excuse. Instead of the somber attitude you were expecting like last time, you’re greeted with the sound of pleasant chit-chat and laughter. The music that plays on the jukebox is upbeat and lively, and the people look like they’re drinking to celebrate rather than to forget. You glance at their faces and find that they’re smiling- actual, genuine smiles and not those half-hearted, fake pity smiles.

The mood is surprisingly… _cheerful_. You don’t know how to feel about it.

“Hey, it’s Sans!” someone announces as you make your way to the bar.

“Hi Sans!” “Where’ve you been, man?” “Got any good jokes for us?”

You nod and smile at everyone in turn, too dumbstruck to reply. How is it that everyone is so happy?

“Sans, where have you been?” Grillby asks you as you take a seat. “I haven’t seen you since the service. Have you been all right?”

“Relax, Grillbz. I’ve just been taking extra hours at work,” you tell him, and order a drink. “I’m trying to stay out of the house, you know?”

Well that’s good to hear,” the bar tender serves you a bottle, and pulls up a stool behind the bar, opposite you. “But tell me, have you been doing alright? Quite a few monsters have been concerned about you since you haven’t been around.”

“I’m fine,” you fidget, avoiding his gaze. “No one needs to worry about me.”

“Really? Because you look dead on your feet if you ask me.”

“Well I _didn’t_ ask you,” you say a bit harsher than you intended, sipping your booze. “Can we change the topic now?”

“Sans, you’re my best customer,” Grillby goes on, refusing to let the subject drop. “I’ve seen your face more times than anyone else and I can tell when you’re keeping something back. If you’re still bothered by what happened, you need to talk about it. It’s unhealthy to keep it bottled up.”

“It’s not that,” you mutter, remembering the flower’s predictions. You readjust on the bar stool, but can’t seem to get comfortable. There’s an itching feeling inside you, and you can’t tell what it is. The only thing you know is that Grillby’s prodding is making it worse.

“Then tell me what it is,” Grillby keeps pushing. “If not as my customer, than as my friend. I hate seeing you like this.”

“It doesn’t concern you,” you say sternly. You recognize the feeling now. It wasn’t fear or nervousness like you initially thought- it’s _annoyance_. “I can handle it myself.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Grillby keeps going. 

God, you wish he would stop talking. You subtly set an example by taking a swig of your drink which doubles as an excuse for you not to reply. You even swallow slowly so you can ignore him longer.

“Sans, don’t act this way. It’s childish.”

 _Christ_ , Grillby needs to learn when to take a hint and let the subject drop It’s _aggravating._

The inferno is still watching you, waiting for an answer. You squirm, grumble, look everywhere but at him, and still refuse to speak.

“Sans,” he says flatly.

Your fingers drum the counter nervously as you stay silent. What does he expect you to do? Spill your guts out to him? Tell him that you know everyone’s stuck in this rotten reality because a Reset they would have never been aware of never happened? Tell him you were living each day on a knife’s edge because you constantly kept one eye open for a daffodil that wanted to dust you?

“Sans.” Grillby says again, a bit more firmly.

Tell him you thought the spirit of a malevolent dead child was trying to torment you from beyond the grave? He’d never believe you if you told him the truth, or worse, he’d _act_ like he’d believe you as a way to console you. The very thought of it is _infuriating_.

“Sans, we all know what you’re going through. We understand if you’re hurting and we only want to help-“

“I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP!” you snap, unable to take it anymore. “You say that you understand, that you know what I’m going through, but you DON’T! And none of you EVER WILL!”

The restaurant goes silent. All eyes are on you from your outburst. 

“And all of you!” you shout at the other guests, losing yourself in anger. “How can you all act so happy? Why are you all pretending things are alright? Things will never be alright again!”

“Sans, calm down,” Grillby says neutrally. “If you threaten the other patrons again, I’ll have no choice but to kick you out.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” you bark, snapping your attention back to him. “You started this! If you had just ended the conversation when I had _asked_ , I wouldn’t be this way! _You_ need to learn to keep your nose out of other people’s business!”

“Sans, I’m sorry if I upset you, but please lower your voice and talk it out with me.”

“No! This is your fault! Deal with the consequences!” you slam your bottle on the counter and it shatters, spilling shards of glass in every direction. Grillby’s flame takes on a shade of magenta as his own emotions heat him up, but he keeps his tone perfectly even.

“Sans, I’m sorry, but I will not tolerate the vandalism of my property. You’re endangering my other customers, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Oh yeah?” you sneer, alcohol kicking in and making you equal parts intoxicated and unruly. “And what if I don’t want to?”

Grillby pulls out some oven mitts.

In retrospect, it was considerate of him to wear extra protection, knowing his own restrained anger could still burn a hole through your clothes while he unceremoniously dumps you out in the snow.

“I apologize for this, Sans,” he says not sounding apologetic in the slightest. “I still do want to help you, but for the safety of my customers and my establishment, we’ll have to try again a different time. I’m more than willing to give you another chance, so please come back when you’ve cooled off and are ready to talk.”

He shuts the door behind him, leaving you in the cold. Grumbling, you kick the slush and walk off into the woods. You don’t want to go home yet.

You can’t remember the last time you felt this angry, but if you were being honest with yourself, you were relieved to feel it. Feeling angry was better than feeling hollow, so you clung to it and actively searched for more things to feed it.

How dare Grillby kick you out after _he_ pushed you over the edge! The guy seriously needs to learn to keep his questions to himself! And all those other patrons! They only wanted you around for your jokes. How dare they be laughing and smiling like nothing was ever wrong. How could they even move on from the massacre so easily? And more importantly, _why couldn’t you?_

You rub your temporal bones as you walk, your anger fading. Who were you kidding. Deep down you knew you knew you were the one at fault, but it just felt so _good_ to be mad, to blame someone else, to feel furious instead of that horrible, awful nothingness that tempted your mind with dark thoughts.

So instead you chose to ignore reason and intentionally looked for things to be mad at, and as long as it made you feel _something_ , you were going to keep doing it.

You hike past some of Papyrus’ puzzles, feeling your irritation flare once more.

Papyrus… He _knew_ that humans were dangerous. He _knew_ that kid killed every monster in its path. He should have never kept believing they could have been good if they just tried! He should have never let _you_ believe it either! It’s his own fault he died!

You slide across some ice and catch your reflection in the frozen water.

What are you thinking, being mad at your own _murdered_ brother? If there’s anyone you should be mad at, it’s yourself. _You_ could have intervened at any time, _should_ have intervened. _You_ could have killed that human as soon as they stepped out of those doors, saved the lives of so many people AND got the seventh soul that would have broken the barrier and freed everyone, but you didn’t. If there’s anyone to blame, it’s you.

You walk past your sentry post and the lamp and the bridge where you shook the kid’s hand for the first time. Everything you see that reminds you of them adds to your hatred a little more, and you keep trekking until you get lost in the woods.

It’s only when you’re sure you’re the only soul for miles do you let out your pent up frustration on the innocent trees, attacking them without mercy.

“Not Resetting because you want to see me suffer, huh?” you shout at the sky, at a dead child, at no one. “You think you can break me? Ha! Good fucking luck! You can’t do anything to me! _You’re! Dead!_ ”

You attack the trees for what feels like hours, reducing a dozen of them to ash and severely damaging many more. But like a match stick, your fury blazes bright yet is quick to extinguish, and before long you find that you’ve burnt yourself out and feel emptier than ever.

“You’re dead… “ you pant. “…You’re… dead…” 

No matter how hard you concentrate, you can’t get mad again. Try as you might, you can’t evoke a single emotion. You try to imagine the human’s face, that remorseless grin they had when they murdered your bother. You try to recall all the fear and suffering they inflicted on everyone in the Underground, but to no avail. You try to remember all the hate and pain you felt when you fought them in the judgement hall a hundred times over, but the feelings don’t come.

Exhausted, you stagger over to a tree and slump against it.

“You’re dead…” you say one last time, knowing full well that no one was listening to you.

You try to get angry at anyone, _anything_ ; Grillby, Asgore, Flowey, yourself… but nothing happens.

 _Look at yourself,_ you think in defeat. _Blaming everyone else for something they didn’t do. Grillby came to you as a friend and you pushed him away. You pushed everyone away._

Weary and spent, you pick yourself up and decide to head home, too tired to keep our thoughts anchored from floating into dangerous waters.

 _You probably hurt everyone back there pretty bad,_ you brood. _Won’t be surprised if they all stopped worrying about you like you wanted._

Your feet crunch through the icy sleet.

 _And if anyone_ is _still worried about you, then you don’t deserve them after what you did._

You make it home without much trouble.

_But… if you didn’t exist at all, you wouldn’t have to worry about anyone worrying about you._

You go to your room and shut yourself in the dark, steeling yourself for another sleepless night. You already know it’s going to be a hard one.

_Maybe… maybe the flower was right._


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I will not sin on Thanksgiving. I will NOT sin on Thanksgiving."
> 
> *updates fan fiction*
> 
> "GOD DAMN IT."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all who left suggestions on chapter 6! You all gave me wonderful ideas to help fix the pacing, and I plan to go back and rewrite it once I'm done with NaNoWriMo. (5 thousand words to go! I'M GONNA MAKE IT!)

If someone had asked you to describe your current state of mind, you would have said you felt like a ghost who had gotten lost while trying to cross over to the other side, gave up, and then decided to rent an apartment in limbo. But since that was insulting to actual ghosts you actually knew, you would instead describe yourself as a comedian who got fired because he could no longer remember how to be funny. It wasn’t even a metaphor, but was a lot more accurate. 

“What do you mean you’re cutting my act?” You ask your manager, trying your best to sound indignant.

“I mean exactly that!” They say to you. “People come to the MTT resort to relax and have a good laugh. But your one liners about people’s allergies acting up because of all the dust in the air are inappropriate and insensitive.

“But tragedy is the basis of comedy,” you rebuttal.

“You’re missing a key ingredient to that mix, which is ‘time’. It’s only been six months, Sans. People may not talk about it anymore, but it’s still too soon. Hey, hey, don’t give me that look. Think of it this way; you’ll get more time to practice a new routine, and some rookie will finally get their big break with your time slot.”

“You’ve already found another comedian to replace me?” you ask dully.

“No, no, not another comedian,” your manager reassures you. “An illusionist. Relative of Madjick, I think? What was their name again? Soarsiree? Anyway, I’m sorry I have to do this to you, but it’s clear you’re still not ready to return to stage life, so until you’ve fully recuperated we’re gonna have to put you on mandatory leave.”

You exit the hotel under a cloud of apathetic humiliation. Damn it, was it really that obvious? After coming to terms that your head decided feelings just weren’t a thing you were allowed to have anymore, you spent days practicing in front of a mirror on how to act “normal” so you could blend in without notice. You used to be good at it…

You didn’t understand. Everyone else around you had seemed to figure out how to be happy again, so why couldn’t you?

_Obviously because you don’t deserve to be._

Instead of fast traveling home, you decide to take the scenic route by touring the Core and circling back through Hotland. You chose to walk mostly because it would take longer that way. Being home alone with a lot of free time on your hands was not exactly where you wanted to be in case any stupid ideas popped into your head. At least in public you had to maintain appearances, you had eyes watching you. The comedy club was just one of the few escapes you had from total isolation, but now that you’ve lost it…

_Look at you. No matter how hard you try to hide it, everyone still knows. You’d better just do something before you start becoming a burden to everyone. It’s not fair to make them put up with your shit._

The heat from the Core hit you like a brick wall when you entered. Low mechanical whirs and hums reverberated through the air as you meandered through, and steam billowed in the dim light.

 _The Core; the fuel source of all the Underground,_ your memory tells you, recalling some information pamphlet or foot note you read in a text book. _Here, geothermal energy is converted to magic energy which is then used to power everything beneath the mountain. It is our greatest and most important invention._

You wander the corridors in silence, listening to the gigantic machine tirelessly work away, until you come to a bridge spanning across a chasm. Down below, a white-hot concoction of magma and magic pulsates like a heartbeat. In the distance you can hear the hiss of ice blocks hit the lava as it perpetually tries to keep the entire mechanism from overheating.

You aimlessly begin to cross the bridge when something makes you pause and study the glowing liquid-rock beneath you. The longer you idle, the more your thoughts begin to roam. Unaware, you begin to space out.

 _The raw, unharnessed magic that the Core produces is extremely powerful and volatile,_ you recall from some scientific paper or other. _It’s been theorized that coming into contact with magic of this caliber would cause the test subject’s entire being to be scattered across all of conceivable time and space, as is the way of such arcane enchantment._

The magma bubbles and flows. Its shifting colors mesmerize you, and you inch closer to the railings, transfixed.

 _If you fell in, the reaction would cause you to simultaneously exist everywhere and nowhere at once… but you wouldn’t_ technically _die..._

Slowly, unconsciously, you begin to lean forward over the safety rails. 

_And at least you’d finally be out of everyone’s way._

“Oh! Sans? Is that you?” A woman’s voice snaps you out of your trance. You look over your shoulder, and spot a familiar yellow dinosaur heading your way.

“F-fancy meeting you here, Sans.” Alphys smiles nervously at you. “What brings you to Hotland?”

“Oh, hey, Alphys.” your face twists and contorts as you try to remember what a smile is supposed to feel like. Based on Alphys’ reaction, whatever you managed to pull must have looked strained and forced. “I’m just… passing through.”

“O-oh, really?” Alphys wrings her claws. “Uh, cool. I was just running errands for Asgore, myself.”

An awkward silence passes between you. Both of you sweat, but you don’t think it’s from the heat.

“H-hey, I never did properly repay you for the coffee,” she suddenly says.

“Repay… Coffee…? Alphys, that was months ago.”

“I-I know, but you really helped me that day more than you know, a-and I’d really like to return the favor.” Return the favor? Shit, was your face really that easy to read? “W-would you, um, like to come over to my lab for, uh… tea and cake?”

The dinosaur trembled violently for such an innocent question, and your silence sure doesn’t help the situation.

 _If you say ‘no’, she’s going to think she said something wrong and then she’ll blame herself,_ part of your brain tells you. _Just say ‘yes’. It’ll give you an excuse not to go home yet, anyway._

“Sure,” you say at last, and the reptile exhales in relief. “That sound’s… nice. Please, lead the way.”

Listening to Alphys talk as she guided you through Hotland was a welcome change of pace. Along the way she told you all kinds of trivia about Hotland’s puzzles, history and architecture. You half-figured she talked so much just to keep herself busy, but you couldn’t complain. As long as she rambled on, you just had to listen, and as long as you just had to listen, you didn’t have to think.

“Well, h-here we are!” she announces when you approach a large white building. “My, um, humble abode?” She cracks an uncertain grin, but invites you inside nevertheless. 

The first thing you notice about Alphys’ lab is the clutter. Benches and tables line the walls, each stacked high with files and folders of what you can only assume is her research, posters of cartoon-y humans with large eyes and colorful hair plaster the walls in a hodgepodge manner, and bookcases full of movies and comics in a language you can’t read fight for space on the shelves. 

It reminded you very much of your own room, the only difference being her living space was organized chaos whereas yours was a self-perpetuating tornado of garbage. 

“Um… p-pardon the mess,” Alphys sweats. “H-here, follow me upstairs.”

You take an escalator up to a loft where there are more bookshelves and workbenches, but it is noticeably less messy up here.

“M-make yourself comfortable! I’ll go get the refreshments.”

You pull up a chair to a small table showcasing a lone figurine of a human with cat ears and tail. The table is the cleanest part of the whole room, but the little statue kind of weirds you out. You turn it around so it faces the wall.

“Sorry for the wait,” Alphys apologizes when she returns a few minutes later. “I’m kind of magically inept, so I have to heat up tea the old fashioned way.”

She sets the table, placing three cups and a coffee cake between you. Puzzled, you watch as she first cuts you a generous slice of the cake then serves tea for three, handing one cup off to you, one for herself, and taking the last cup to a flower pot on her bed stand. When you take a closer look you see the pot holds small purple flowers with many petals. Two photos, one of Undyne and one of Mettaton, rest against it, along with small vials of dust.

“What’s that?” you dare to ask.

“Oh, i-it’s, uh, a little memorial I keep for my friends,” Alphys answers, almost embarrassed. “I, uh, learned about these kinds of altars from the all anime I’ve watched. The purple flowers are asters. Synthetic, of course. They don’t grow down here, so I made them myself. In flower language, they mean ‘I won’t forget you’, and in Japanese culture it’s not uncommon to serve a portion of your meal to the deceased. Since I couldn’t decide what to spread Mettaton’s and Undyne’s dust on, I decided I’d honor them a different way.”

“You couldn’t decide?”

“Well, if you want to get technical,” Alphys takes a seat across from you, smiling fondly. “If I wanted to spread Mettaton’s dust on the thing he loved most, he’d end up being spread pretty thin since I’d have to put a little bit of him on absolutely everything. ‘All the world’s a stage, darling, and I’m the headlining role’ he used to stay. 

“In the end, I just gave his dust back to his cousin, save for the small bit I kept for the altar. As for Undyne… I know I was her best friend, but I feel ashamed to say I don’t even know what she loved most. Was it her armor? Her spears? Some could argue that she loved protecting all of us the most, but I can’t really go around sprinkling dust on people.”

You clear your throat after a sip of tea, a notion occurring to you. “You got the idea from anime,” you say slowly, knitting your brow. “Doesn’t that make this memorial a human tradition, then?”

Alphys visibly winces at your words.

“Y-y-yes, but…! Y-you see, it’s like…! I-I know a human was the one who…!” The dinosaur stutters. Shit, that reaction was bad. Did you really sound that accusatory? You hadn’t meant for your words to come off that way, you were just curious. Embarrassed, you take a bite of coffee cake, but it’s dry and tasteless in your mouth. 

“Oh, who am I kidding. I know, it seems almost insulting, doesn’t it? But… it still helped me cope, knowing I could keep their memory alive this way. Well, maybe I was just too afraid to admit I didn’t want to throw their dust to the wind and be done with it. I wasn’t ready to move on that fast. I still don’t think I am…”

_Look at what you’ve done, you heartless, insensitive freak. Just because you can’t find peace doesn’t mean you deserve to ruin others’._

“I’m sorry,” you apologize upon seeing how upset you’ve made her. “I shouldn’t have questioned something that helped you overcome your grief.”

“No, no, I understand,” Alphys tries to reassure you. “You had to fight the human personally, so I can see where you’re coming from if anything human-related upsets you. I-if it makes you feel any better, it was knowing that there are people like you out there that really helped keep me going.”

“People like me?”

“Yeah. You, and Undyne and Mettaton. You all fought the human to protect the rest of us. Knowing that, I have to keep going. Undyne and Mettaton didn’t die to see me give up, so I’ll stay strong for their sake.”

“Glad to see you’re holding out better than I am,” you mumble.

“R-really?” Alphys asks, picking up on something in your tone. “Don’t y-you have anything that helps you keep going?”

“Not anymore.”

The silence that follows is suffocating as Alphys studies you with concern. Crap, was she on to you? Fuck, you didn’t want to get her tangled up in your problems. 

As always, Alphys is the first to break the quiet.

“I-I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in a few.”

Alphys scurries off, leaving you alone with your thoughts unsupervised. You exhale in relief.

Living on so your friends’ efforts don’t go in vain… It was honest enough reason, it was humble enough reason. Too bad you didn’t have anyone to keep living for.

_But Papyrus-_

“Papyrus died trying to befriend the little beast,” you mutter under your breath. “He didn’t sacrifice anything. He wasn't a martyr, and to say ‘I continue to exist so the memory of my brother being turned to powder always live on’ isn’t exactly poetic or noble.”

You take another sip of tea, but it’s cold and bitter. Man, Alphys sure is taking her time in the bathroom. You figure _she_ figures she offended you somehow, and now feels ashamed of it. That couldn’t be further from the truth, but how do you causally tell someone you can’t feel feelings anymore and that literally impossible for you to be insulted, without completely alarming them?

_She was just trying to be nice, but because you can’t even put on a goddamn smile every once in a while, you’re making her think she’s done something wrong. You cause nothing but trouble wherever you go. Way to go, jackass._

When being harsh to yourself unsurprisingly does nothing to give you emotion, your eyes and mind once again begin to drift. Your gaze lazily floats over the projects on your host’s work bench and the lab coats in her wardrobe, and work your way around the room until your eyes somehow manage to come back to the table and spy the coffee cake. 

And more importantly, the knife beside it.

You stare at the knife for a long time, not entirely sure yourself where this train of thought is headed, but you have a suspicion that the stop lies at the end of at least one long, dark tunnel. The next thing you know, your hand is reaching for its handle, slowly, delicately, moving like you’re in a dream. 

When the knife is in your hand, you tenderly turn it over, inspecting both sides. Studying the utensil is like an out of body experience, like you’re watching through the eyes of someone else handling the blade. You catch your reflection in the metal and see a face just as devoid of emotion as you felt. You guess you should have been alarmed, but being so vaguely aware of yourself as is, you wouldn't have been able to even if you tried.

For reasons beyond your understanding, you put the flat of the blade against your left palm. It’s smooth… and hard… and kind of cold, but sensation stirs something deep within you.

For so long now you’ve been drifting through each day as nothing more than an empty husk, unable to remember what emotion felt like, what actual feelings truly felt like. 

It made you wonder…

…if you could feel the knife...

Carefully, purposefully, you rotate the blade until its razor-thin edge is perpendicular to your metacarpals, and gently, very gently, you began to apply pressure.

You slowly keep pushing until you sense yourself reaching your tolerance threshold. When you get to your limit you stop- hesitating.

_If you go any further than this, you’ll find out if you feel it, but it will be the last thing you do._

_Will it be worth it?_

You wait…

You debate…

You…

…very carefully… put the knife back down… and let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. Your pulse is rushing and your entire body can’t help but tremble.

 _No,_ you think, firmly coming to a resolution. _That’s the way the kid tried to kill me. I refuse to go out the same way. Not to even mention what it would do to poor Alphys if she came back to find a pile of dust under a jacket and scarf._

“Aww, cold feet?” a voice mocks you.

Your head snaps up so fast, your cervical vertebrae pop. There on the altar, in the pot where the asters were just a few minutes prior, sits one complacent-looking yellow flower. 

The legs of your chair squeal against tile as you force it back when you get to your feet.

“Ah-ah-ah!” Flowey scolds, curling a leaf around each bottle of dust as your eye starts to ring with blue. “Science safety rule number one! No magic in the lab! You wouldn’t want to damage any of Alphys’ research or possessions, would you?” His smile grows fangs as he threatens to smash the vials of Mettaton’s and Undyne’s ashes on the floor. You sharply inhale, but don’t approach.

“How the hell did you get in here?” you demand.

“I go where I please! You should know that by now.” Flowey twirls the dust-filled jars with his stem. “I must say, I’m disappointed in you. You looked like you were really committed to throwing yourself into the Core until _she_ came along. Did she get in your way? Did she distract you? _Do I need to get rid of her for you?_ ”

“You leave Alphys out of this,” you snap. “She’s worked hard to get back to where she is now.”

“Ugh, I know.” Flowey groans and rolls his eyes. “She was next on my list after you, but if you take any longer, I may have to bump her up the queue!”

You grimace. This weed has gone too far. Threatening you all he wants is no skin off your nose, but bringing in bystanders? You were going to rip him from the soil and incinerate his roots one by one, grab him by his very essence and thrash him against the walls until he died. No matter how long it would take you, you would make him pay for such atrocities.

You make a mental grab for the flower with telekinesis, trying to drag him into a fight and settle this once and for all. The world goes dark, your soul pounds in crescendo, and-

Nothing happens. 

_What? Why didn’t it work?_

“You idiot,” the flower snickers at your confusion. “That little trick won’t work on me. I HAVE NO SOUL FOR YOU TO PLAY PUPPET MASTER WITH, REMEMBER?”

Christ, you _are_ a fucking idiot. How could you forget? Furious, you fire a bone at his head that he easily ducks, and it embeds itself into the wall behind him.

“Hey, I told you, no magic in the lab!” Flowey sneers. “And since you broke the rules-”

The flower tosses the vials of dust over the edge of the loft before he finishes the sentence. You make a wild dive for them, but your reach isn’t long enough.

“No!” You yell as you helplessly watch the jars smash onto the ground floor below. Behind you, you hear more things shattering and turn to find the pictures and flower pot knocked off the night stand, completely destroyed. The yellow flower is nowhere in sight.

“No no no no no,” your fingers tremble over the torn photographs and broken ceramic. No magic you knew could fix this.

“Sans, are you alright?” Alphys shouts, running up the escalator. “I thought I heard a cup break or something, and-“

She stops dead in her tracks when she sees you kneeling over the vandalized altar. Her eyes drift to the wall where your very incriminating bone is still protruding from the plaster, and then down to the ground floor where the shattered glass and dust glint in the light. She makes no noise beyond a choked gasp.

“Alphys… I… I….” You desperately search for words, but none come to you.

Alphys opens and closes her mouth several times, tears welling in her eyes.

“Alphys, please, I didn’t-” You step towards her and she recoils, breathing hard. You can’t stop yourself from flinching back yourself.

“Sans,” her voice is small and weak. “ I-I know you hated the human, and I-I’m sorry if I offended you that badly with my memorial, but I… I think you need to leave.”

“Alphys-”

“Please go, Sans.” She interrupts, unable to look you in the eye. “I’m sorry, but please, just… just go.”

You linger, trying, _struggling_ to find a way to explain, to make amends, but noting comes to you. Even if you told the truth, she wouldn’t believe you. Even you, who witnessed it all, would have agreed the evidence found made you look responsible. Hell, you were responsible in a way, but worst of all you can’t even manage to make yourself actually feel ashamed of it for her sake.

With a sigh, you accept defeat and turn to leave the lab. You don’t bother apologizing. You knew it wouldn’t help.

And as you walk back through Waterfall, Alphys’ quiet sobs continue to echo in your head even after you’ve left her far behind.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WITH THIS CHAPTER, I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY WRITTEN 50,000 WORDS OF FAN FICTION FOR NANOWRIMO! FUCK YOU CARPAL TUNNEL!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was going to be longer, but I needed to get this up now if I wanted to beat NaNoWriMo on time. Sorry for cutting it off where I did.

“Why didn’t you just teleport down there and catch them? You could have at least saved their dust!” You’ve been walking in circles around Waterfall for over an hour now, still not ready to go back home and even less ready to forgive yourself for what had happened in Alphys’ lab. “But that damn weed still would have shredded the pictures and smashed the pot, even if you did save the dust. She would have still thought you destroyed the altar. You WERE the only one there at the scene of the crime. Not to mention your very own weapon stuck in the wall. How could you have possibly explained that?”

Your head is more of a mess than usual. Be it because of that flower or your own incompetence, your mind just can’t seem to move on from the incident. You’ve been trying in vain to talk yourself out of it, but much like your feet, your train of thought seems to be stuck on a circular track, always bringing back the same recollections of how useless you had acted and asking the same questions you just knew you didn’t have an answer to. Still, you keep talking until your voice gets raw and your legs go numb, searching for solutions you knew you wouldn’t find.

“God, why didn’t you at least apologize? You just had to walk off like a cold-hearted dick, didn’t you? Apologizing would have at least been a start! No… no, she wouldn’t have believed you were being sincere. You certainly can’t act like it anymore. If you tried, she would have thought you were mocking her. It would have been like rubbing salt in her wounds.” As you pace through the puddles for the umpteenth time, a cold rain drips onto your skull and into your eye sockets. Ah, water torture. If you hadn’t been preoccupied with mindlessly walking around in circles, you may have been inclined to just stand there and let the sky punish you for all the mistakes you keep making instead of trying to inflict it yourself. 

“Argh, this is all your fault. She’s never going to forgive you for this. I don’t blame her. You’d rather just run away and find excuses.” You’ve made your way to a field of echo flowers now, and the flora, catching bits and pieces of your ranting, waste no time whispering them back to you.

_”…all your fault…” “…never going to forgive…” “…excuses… excuses…”_

You finally halt your endless trudging and listen to them for a second. It’s incredibly helpful to have plants that will endlessly repeat what you say, so you can still have something to speak for you on every mistake and failure you’ve made once your voice goes out. 

“Look at yourself. Even when you try your best to get better on your own, you end up hurting people. You shouldn’t have even been relying on everyone else to keep you in check in the first place. You’re not a toddler, no one should have to be responsible for you. It just makes you a hassle to put up with.” You put your face in one hand.

“God, Alphys was only trying to _help_ you too! Even if she could forgive you, you don’t deserve her help anymore. You had one shot and you missed it because you were too stubborn, and now here you are, talking to yourself in a field of flowers. I wonder how many people think I’ve officially gone way off the deep end.”

Out of breath and practically mute, you take a break to sit amongst the bioluminescent flowers and let them do the talking for a bit. The patch you chose are bunched relatively close together, and it doesn’t take long for the flowers to start swapping words with each other to make their own unique phrases.

_“…In… the… way…” “…don’t deserve… to… be….” “… no one… to… miss… you….” “… better… off… gone…”_

You recline into the flower patch and vegetate as you regain some stamina, all the while listening to them babble to themselves. Eventually, all the flowers’ echoes blend together into meaningless white noise and you find yourself in an uncomfortable quiet filled with wordless static.

Blankly, you stare at the gem-speckled ceiling- permanently placed stars that never fade or shift. As your eyes chase the glowing rocks above you, a memory flickers to life in the back of your mind. It’s an old one, when you and Papyrus were both really young. The two of you would spend hours imagining your own constellations and making wishes with all your heart on the brightest stones.

How old were you when you had finally given up those silly dreams and pointless prayers? When you finally realized that hoping and begging and pleading to the “stars” would get you nowhere? You couldn’t remember for certain, you only knew it had been years ago now since you last wished on those indifferent rocks above you.

Papyrus, on the other hand, had never stopped wishing. Be it bottomless optimism or endlessly enamored with the tradition, your brother never lost faith in the idea of wishing on stars, real or not.

_”All monsters wishing for the same thing can’t be wrong!”_ he paraphrased from some plaque, or possibly Undyne. 

But hadn’t _all_ monsters wished to be free from the Underground? Hadn’t all monsters wished for their friends and family to come back after the human was stopped? 

_They had, and look how much wishing on rocks had done for them._

Not wanting to recall all those you couldn’t - _didn’t_ \- save, you quit “star gazing” and force yourself to get up and start walking once more, this time towards the large, underground lakes that feed in from Snowdin’s river. God, you haven’t physically exercised this much in your entire life. Honestly, you wish you could go back to being your lazy self if only your own head wasn’t out to get you.

Along the way to the lake you pass the mysterious statue, catch sight of Asgore’s castle in the distance, and then… come across more echo flowers? Funny, they never bloomed this far out before. Upon further inspection, you can see that they’re all evenly spaced, far enough apart so they can’t hear each other, and they each have… ribbons tied to them?

You walk up to the nearest one and take a closer look. 

_”I won’t forget you, Shyren,”_ it says forlornly. 

_”Good bye, Vulkin,”_ the neighboring flower says, despondent. 

_”In memory of Gyftrot,”_ a third mourns.

You stiffen when you understand. These flowers didn’t grow here by chance, they were planted here internally. _You were walking through a graveyard._

_”…Temmies will miss Temmie…” “Ice Cap,” “Pyrope,” “Washua,” “Aaron,”_

So many names… So many monsters you watched die from the sidelines, so many monsters you _could have saved_ if you had only intervened sooner. Hearing them all, it should have been sad. You _wanted_ to feel sad, or guilty, or grief, or _something_ … but you just _couldn’t_. It was nothing but an empty void with in you.

You were tired of it.

_I can’t do this anymore,_ you cave, hustling as fast as you can out of the cemetery. But you aren’t heading home. You’ve decided that you can’t go back- not today or ever again.

You only slow when the peaty soil gives way to boardwalks with creaky wooden planks. The fake stars become few and far between and cattails line the path. Echo flowers continued to name monsters lost - _monsters you couldn’t save_ \- but eventually fade into the distance the further you went. You close your eyes and walk from memory, listening to your foot falls clack against the old wood, knowing exactly which twists and turns to take from their sound alone. 

_Undyne fought the human on this bridge,_ one part of your brain notes. _She severed the bridge._

You were aware.

_Think about something else,_ the other part of your brain orders to keep you distracted. _Don’t open your eyes. Keep walking. Don’t look._

Step after step you slowly move forward, blind and resolute. 

_Why are you doing this. Don’t do this. This is a bad thing,_ the tiny bit of reason left in your head tells you, but it doesn’t sound alarmed, or even concerned- more like it’s only telling you out of obligation. It seems even your own self-preservation has given up.

_Bad how?_ you argue with yourself to stay occupied. _It’s not like I’m taking anybody down with me, and I won’t be able to hurt more people like I did Alphys. No one will even miss me._

You could sense you were at the widest part of the bridge now, the big open platform judging by the sound of its echoes. 

_I don’t want to wake up each day knowing that I could have saved so many lives if I had just acted sooner, and I_ especially _don’t want to wake up knowing I can’t even_ care _about it anymore._

_But suicide is wrong because… because it just is!_ your logic argues weakly, any legitimate argument either forgotten or intentionally repressed. 

_Okay, then how about a deal?_ you bargain with yourself, eyes still closed. _I can’t stand being like this anymore, emotionless and empty, but if I manage to feel something before I reach the drop, I’ll stop._

You agree to the terms and keep walking… waiting… _expecting_ to feel some hint of emotion as each step brought you closer to the end. A small twinge of apprehension, or doubt perhaps. Hell, you’d even take fear and self-loathing back as long as it was _something_ … but nothing came to you.

There is still wood beneath your feet. How long is this boardwalk? You thought it was broken-

Your question gets answered that very instant when the next thing you realize gravity taking a sudden interest in you, embracing your body as you slip from the demolished bridge. Your eyes fly open and you gasp at the sight of a bottomless black pit rushing up to meet you.

Two seconds too late, the feeling you were hoping to save your life hits you strong and hard. A second more, and you’re able to identify it just as the darkness swallows you whole;

It’s regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ACTUALLY, I TAKE IT BACK ABOUT THE CLIFFHANGER. I"M NOT SORRY AT ALL!   
> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
> 
> NEXT PART COMING TOMORROW OR TUESDAY, PROBABLY.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Herp derp, the "second half" to chapter 8, if I had never split it. It's too short for my liking and it's all boring dialog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CRAP, IT"S DECEMBER AND I"M STILL NOT DONE WRITING THIS?? AM I GOING TO END UP SINNING ON CHRISTMAS?? (nah, I'm predicting the next chapter to be the last, unless it gets really unbearably long, and I have to end up splitting it again.)

_*Snap!*_  
_*Crack!*_  
_*CRUNCH!!*_  
_*CRASH!!*_

XXX

You regain consciousness to the sound of trickling water and the scent of… marigold?

Your eyes flutter open only to find endless blackness above you and golden flower petals bordering your vision.

Disoriented and unsure how you ended up lying on your back, you try to remember what you were last doing. Let’s see, there was the echo flowers, and then the stars, and then the bri- 

Oh. Oh God, you walked of the- you tried to-

 _But I’m not dead,_ you realize.

In light of this simple fact, your body violently _seizes_ as a tilde wave of overpowering, overwhelming _feeling_ crashes down on you. It’s a maelstrom of emotions, entangled, and _real_ , and borderline _painful_. In the confusion of it all, you’re pretty sure you felt flashes of relief and disappointment, anger and shame, and many, many more until your body does you a favor of dulling your senses by sending you into complete and total shock. 

Uncontrollably trembling, you gasp for breath, but no matter how much air you swallow it never seems to be enough, and even though you don’t have a physical heart, there’s a pounding in your chest that won’t go away, and it unbearably _hurts_.

 _You didn’t die,_ you tell yourself again, equal parts stunned and upset. _But you came so close_.

“What’s this? Don’t tell me you’ve _fallen_ for me, bonehead.” The yellow flower’s face eclipses your field of view, upside down in yours. He looks annoyed of all things. “You’re really not my type.”

You’re still too scattered to react right away beyond gulping for oxygen like a fish on dry land.

“Getting desperate are we?” Flowey coos. “Aw, how cute. But if you wanted my help offing you, you could have just asked instead of _throwing_ yourself at me. Falling onto a bed of posies isn’t exactly seppuku.”

You feel vines beginning to creep up your legs while he talks, trying to be inconspicuous. Alarm bells sound in your head and you force yourself to act. 

Before the flower gets a chance to tie you down, you manage to wink out of reality, reappear several yards away about two feet in the air and still horizontal from your original position. Gravity kicks in and you hit the water with a splash, but the cold and wet help slap some sense into you.

You stand, soaked and dripping. Unsteady on your shaky feet, you take in the sight of the bush that just saved your life. It’s incredibly overgrown and thick with golden flowers, and your crash landing doesn’t seem to be the first its experienced judging by all the scattered, broken twigs floating in the water around it.

“Did… did you g-grow those fl-flowers here?” your voice quivers as you fight through the trauma. Every coherent thought is screaming at you to stay weary of him in your muddled state.

“No, and I wish someone had cleared them away after the human fell on them like you just did,” Flowey answers you straight. “You would have finally been out of my way if they weren’t here. I bet you knew those flowers were there, didn’t you?

The flower’s expression turns sly. “Hmm, you knew walking off the bridge wouldn’t kill you, so you must have done it for some other reason. Could it be that you tossed yourself on to them intentionally… to find me, perhaps?”

You snort- a good, honest, actual snort, despite your shuttering. “A-as if. Why on Earth would I _ever_ want to seek you out for c-company?”

“Because you need me,” the flower gives you his most innocent saccharine smile. “I’m the only one you know who can still make you feel things.”

“N-not true,” you look up the chasm you just plummeted down. Flowey follows your gaze and chuckles condescendingly. 

“What? That? You think you’re all cured because of your little dare devil stunt? You think you’ve magically learned how to feel again because you bit the bullet but not the dust? No, Sans, you’re drunk on adrenaline. Give it a day and you’ll sober up, and then you’ll come crawling right back to me.”

“I-I don’t need you,” you seethe, and turn to walk away, your legs sloshing through the waste-high water. You don’t want to deal with him right now; you shouldn’t even be wasting time talking to him. You’re still too addled to sort out your own new-found, conflicting emotions, and you need to get as far away as you can from him and this whole place in general. God, you would fast travel as far away as you could if you weren’t so shaken.

“Oh, but you do,” the flower says in a lulling tone, slithering behind you. “You won’t admit it, not even to yourself, but I’m the sole reason you haven’t tried to terminate yourself sooner.”

You click your tongue (an impressive feat for not having one) and keep walking, trying to make sense of where you are, but it’s just a bunch of soggy garbage and refuse as far as your eyes can see. 

“Think about it,” Flowey snakes after you. “I’ve made you experience fear, and anger, and self-loathing when you could no longer feel anything else. I made you feel scared and paranoid in Snowdin, and if only for a second, I made you feel mad and concerned in Alphys’ lab, though you didn’t even notice it. Face it! You’re terrified of being emotionless, so you’re using me to live!”

“Right now you’re making me _feel_ sick and tired of listening to the crap coming out of your mouth.” You retort, finally managing to suppress your shivers. You recognize some stairs and begin to ascend. You know where you are now. “That reasoning is so convoluted and contradictory to your goal. If you really believed I would have killed myself sooner without your interference, then why didn’t you just stay away?”

“Because it’s fun watching you make yourself suffer in silence, duh.”

“Bullshit. You’re just running out of ideas on how to taunt me, so now you’re making shit up.”

“Still don’t believe me? I can prove it.”

“Yeah? How?” You come to a disproportionately small gap. A small yellow bird offers to carry you across, but you politely decline and simply jump to the other side.

“Easy. Because _I’m_ still here.” The weed explains, popping up on the other side after you. “You _know_ I promised to kill you, and yet you’re still letting me live. You _know_ I’ve been stalking you virtually every waking minute, and yet you never confronted me. Hell, you’re letting me walk by your side not even two feet from you!” You make your way across the bridge seeds. “If you really, truly wanted me gone, you could have tracked me down so easily and stopped me for good. I know this because unlike you, I CAN remember every Save I’ve been in, and I’ve seen you do it before. But since this time you’re not, it must mean you want me around for something.”

“What, do you want me to take you out right now?” You challenge, calling his bluff. 

“Pfft. You couldn’t hit me if you tried,” the flower boasts, unfazed. 

“Oh yeah?” You come to a halt. Fed up with his fibs, you wave your arm and a circle of bones materializes around the both of you. “Then tell me how you like thi- _OOF!_ ” A vine you didn’t see strikes across the back of your ankles, tripping you and knocking you flat on your back. With your skull to the ground, you swear you could hear the sound of fading laughter through the dirt as Flowey runs away. 

“You dirty rotten cheater,” you mutter to the earth. “It wasn’t your turn.” You’ll admit it was a mistake trying to fight him when you were still so befuddled. You needed to learn to stop falling for his gibes while you weren’t a hundred percent rational. 

With an aggravated sigh, you pick yourself up and brush it off, more than willing to put his words behind you. It sounds like _he’s_ the one getting desperate to you, with those weak, flimsy lies. Being dependent on him? Get real. A masochistic relationship like that could only be formed through the unholy union of gaslighting and Stockholm syndrome.

You shake your head at the idiocy of it all and cross the border back to Snowdin. Though still badly unnerved about what you just survived, you felt it was time to finally go home.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE! I rewrote chapter six like I said I was going to! It flows A MILLION times smoother now and better dives into the fear and anger I originally tried to get across. it's twice as long and has some new scenes thrown in along with the old. I bring this up because this chapter makes a reference to those scenes. I suggest you re-read it, but it's not life or death if you don't. And big thanks to all of you who gave me critique!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who has fiiiiiiiinaaaaaaaaals~! reasons why this chapter took forever: 1) FINALS. 2) I had to rewrite chapter 6 before I could progress. I just couldn't bear the thought of finishing this story without bringing all the chapters up to the same quality (and even after I finish you can bet I'm going to constantly be going back and making small revisions here and there). I had no idea rewriting a whole chapter would take me a week instead of my usual two days.
> 
> In other news, the entire story is 100 percent done, and i'll upload the next/last chapter tuesday morning~ in the mean time, enjoy this special midnight release of a chapter because I love fucking up my sleep schedule during exam week.
> 
> ALSO! I'M A PRETENTIOUS HIPSTER FUCK AND I MADE A SELF-INDULGENT 8TRACKS FOR MY OWN FAN FICTION! LISTEN TO IT HERE, BUT BE PREPARED TO FEEL AWFUL!: http://8tracks.com/clevercatchphrase/end-of-the-line

You really wished the flower had been wrong.

You went straight to bed when you finally returned home, but it was hours still before you found sleep. There was too much to think about first.

Body still buzzing with emotion, you tried your best to sort through them, hoping to understand how to keep yourself from losing them again.

 _You didn’t die,_ you think to yourself, as if you still couldn’t accept this fact was true unless you said it a hundred times. _But now you have to keep living._

You didn’t understand it; how could two phrases, practically the inverse of each other, have such drastically different implications?

_You got a second chance. Aren’t you happy?_

Yes. No. You don’t know.

_What did you feel, and why did you feel that way?_

Let’s see, you had felt scared when you were falling, or maybe afraid of the pain of impact; unready like you realized you made a big mistake; alleviated because you were still alive, but also upset because you were _still alive_ and now you have to _keep being alive_ with one more fuck up to add to your list of mistakes.

 _You’re still alive. You should be glad_.

Still alive… but still being alive meant still waking up every morning knowing everyone else was gone. Still being alive meant still remembering people you’ve hurt and people you couldn’t save. Still being alive meant risking forgetting how to feel again.

_Would being dead be better?_

Yes. No. You don’t know. 

You guess you were scared of pain and dying, but is a temporary disquiet really worse than living the rest of your life in guilt or shame, or worst of all, an existence devoid of empathy and care?

Yes. No. You don’t know. You just don’t know.

You sleep for sixteen solid hours. It was a blissful, dreamless sleep, lacking any level of awareness and certainly more rest than you’ve had in all of the last five months combined, but your worst fears are threatened to be confirmed when you awake the next day still feeling drained in more ways than one.

The flower was right. Your near-death experience had only been a temporary fix and not a permanent solution. God, you hoped that didn’t mean he had been wright about the other stuff he said.

No. No, of course he wasn’t. You didn’t need him. _He_ always came to _you_. Hell, you never asked for his opinion or conversation on anything. He simply gave it to you free of solicitation, whether you wanted it or not. You were _his_ distraction, his entertainment, his plaything. _He_ needed _you_.

Doubt. Yeah, that’s what he was doing- planting seeds of doubt in your mind to make you double guess yourself and confuse your messed up psyche even more. Fitting for a weed, but you weren’t going to fall for it.

You half-humored the thought of telling someone what you did on the bridge, but decided against it. As far as you were concerned, it didn’t work so it didn’t matter, and despite how you still felt, or rather, didn’t feel, you knew you weren’t going to try that particular course of action again anytime soon.

 _”Sans, you never tell anybody anything,”_ your brother had once said to you. Good to know at least one thing about you hadn’t changed all this time.

It was weird being home again. You float through your house, taking it all in with hollow eyes. Could you even still call this _your_ home anymore? A vital piece you didn’t want to name was missing, making the place feel more like solitary confinement rather than a place of belonging.

Ever since that first day, you did not dare enter Papyrus’ room again. You did not want to be reminded that it was empty, or disturb his belongings and tarnish the last memories you had of him. You didn’t even dare touch all his leftover spaghetti in the fridge, not wanting the day to pass when you opened it to find all of the pasta gone like him. You did your absolute best to keep everything in the house the _same_ as it had been when he was still with you, despite knowing that keeping things as they were was not the same as returning to how things had been.

And maybe it was this constant reminder that things could never truly be the same or normal again that made you want to stay away from home as much as possible above all else. You couldn’t stand to be reminded how utterly alone you were in the one place you needed company most.

You have no idea where you’re going to go today as you struggle to get dressed. Waterfall and Hotland were out of the question, so it seems by default you’re stuck with hanging out in Snowdin for now. It’s been a while since you last let yourself be seen here anyway.

You try to act natural as you walk through the neighborhood, but even here in your home town you can’t help but feel out of place. Not even your own neighbors seem to recognize you any more. They look at you the way one would at a tourist or a stranger, or an unwanted visitor. Or maybe that was just your imagination. Either way, you don’t stick around too long in one spot.

Subconsciously you find your feet taking you to Grillby’s, and you have to force yourself to steer away before you can enter. How long had it been since you had lashed out at Grillby and his few remaining regulars? A month? Two? You hadn’t been back since you got kicked out all that time ago, but you still weren’t eager to see people’s reaction to you now. 

The center of town is also full of people today, all far merrier than you can even dream to be. You look the other way when they start to exchange gifts with the family and friends the still have.

It seemed the only option left was getting lost in the woods, but that was fine by you. You were done trying to maintain appearances or fit in. 

It was a beautiful day in the forest, all things considered. The snowflakes fell softly and sparkled like diamonds, the icicles that hung on the trees shimmered, refracting what little light they could catch into rainbows on the branches, the carpet of snow beneath your feet was fresh and fluffy.

But the silence was deafening.

Despite the breathtaking scenery all around you, couldn’t appreciate it. With no distractions in sight, your thoughts were working overtime, dragging your mind deeper into an inescapable black hole with each step you took.

_Why do you even bother to keep running away? There’s no place left you can go that doesn’t bring up memories of you hurting others or yourself. Why keep trying?_

You come to a clearing filled with scarred and blackened trees as if some great battle had taken place here. It takes you a moment, but you recognize it as the very same clearing you made in your fit of anger months ago.

_See? Even this place reminds you of mistakes you made. There’s no where you can hid from what you’ve done. There’s nothing left for you here. Nothing left for you anywhere. You’re so pathetic, still trying to find meaning for your life in a dead end timeline._

You continue to study the trees, a dark idea forming in your head. Any observers of the area would agree a near unstoppable force would have been necessary to cause so much destruction. Even though you claimed you weren’t that strong, you also weren’t a tree, and didn’t have that much health to begin with. You had caused all this damage. You could do it again.

It was so obvious. Why hadn’t you done this from the start? It would be so easy for it to be written off as a training accident by the time someone found your dust, _if_ someone found it at all.

Standing in the middle of the clearing, you call upon your magic and fill the sky with pearly-white bones. Dozens upon dozens crowd the air above you in a tight packed circle big enough to fill the whole clearing.

You watch them, frozen in the air, waiting to fire on your command. You hesitate, vainly listening for any voice of reason one last time… but hear nothing.

“Guess this is it, huh?” you say to yourself, and then answer; “Guess so.”

You exhale- a sigh of defeat, a sigh of acceptance- one last time, and pull your hand down.

The bones on the outer most edge came down first, closing in on you on all sides like ripples from a skipped stone and leaving no escape. You watch as your circle rapidly gets smaller and smaller. You flinch against your will, squeeze your eyes shut, and-

…nothing happens.

You wait several seconds, expecting pain at any moment… but it doesn’t come. 

Slowly… carefully… you open your eyes. There’s no room for you to move. Bones are packed so tightly around you that they brush against your clothing. Very cautiously you look up and find three bones hovering centimeters from your head. A brief flicker of surprise dances in your ribcage before fading away as if it had never been. You groan in despair.

You had reflexively willed the last bones not to impale you at the very last second. Even if you hadn’t managed to catch them at such a close call, it wouldn’t have mattered because you also notice you had unconsciously turned them blue. They couldn’t have hurt you at all.

You can’t do it. You. Just. Can’t. Do it. But why? What is it that keeps holding you back?

You wave your hand in defeat and the weapons vanish like smoke. You slump down where you stand, grabbing your legs, putting your chin on your knees, and stare blankly out at nothing. Fine. Since you just can’t seem to manage to take yourself out, then you were going to sit here until weather or time did it for you.

“Coward,” a disgusted little voice says next to you. You detect a bit of yellow just out of your peripheral vision on the right, but you don’t bother to look or respond.

“I don’t understand why you’re having such a hard time with this,” Flowey says.

You don’t respond.

“Are you afraid it will hurt? Because it won’t if you do it fast.”

You don’t respond.

“You won’t even notice it, trust me. I’ve brought myself to the edge of death many times, so I speak from experience.”

You don’t respond. 

Sensing your disregard, the flower slithers closer. “Poor, poor Sans,” He over exaggerates his words. “How unfortunate it must be to have a soul yet feel so soulless.”

You don’t respond.

“I guess I’m lucky in that sense. We both can’t _feel_ , but at least it’s not killing me inside.”

You don’t respond.

“But don’t worry, Sans. Not like you can anymore. I will make it all stop. I’ll put you out of your misery since you can’t do it yourself.” A hundred small pops punctuate the air as bullet seeds surround you in a dome from every possible angle. Flowey chuckles softly to himself. “Consider it a… _mercy_ killing.”

You don’t respond.

“And just think- when you’re gone, you won’t be able to mess up anymore. No more mistakes, no more trouble to others, no more fighting to feel, and hey! You’ll get to be with your brother again. Doesn’t sound like a bad deal to me at all.” The bullets slowly spin, pulling in closer, sealing the gaps between them.

You don’t respond.

“I don’t see why this is such a hassle for you. You have no need to write a note, and no possessions to distribute in your will.”

You don’t respond.

“Did you at least remember to say good bye to all your friends? Oh, wait a minute- that’s right, you don’t have any because you let most of them die and pushed the rest away.”

You don’t respond.

“Hm, I wonder how many Execution Points you’ll give me. I doubt it will be anything since you _are_ the weakest person in the entire Underground. You probably won’t raise my LOVE at all.”

You don’t respond.

“Not like it matters much. Once I’m finished with you, there will be no one in my way who can stop me from getting LOVE elsewhere.”

You don’t respond.

“I think I’ll start with Doctor Alphys. She’s pretty close to giving up after what _you_ did to her, but I know she still won’t go through with it without my… _encouragement_.”

You- ever so slightly… furrow your brow. Flowey doesn’t catch sight of the action.

“Then after that? Who knows? Maybe I’ll track down that pesky armless monster kid and trip them on a bridge with no ropes! Or maybe I’ll take out that annoying old turtle. Can you imagine a war hero legend being turned to dust by a measly little flower?”

The bullets continue to creep closer. Your fingers dig into your sleeves, but the flower’s too busy listening to himself talk to notice.

“Oh, the stakes will be so much higher now for this particular game. Every death will be permanent, even mine. But I think I can do it all in one go. And after I clear the Underground, I’ll be strong enough to tear down that pathetic excuse for a king, take _his_ and the six human souls. Once that’s done I’ll take control of the timeline by force and destroy this mountain and the surface world! _And then I’ll get really creative with my power_.”

If your face hadn’t been half hidden by your arms, the weed surely would have seen your jaw clenching.

The bullets stop spinning and come to a halt, all pointed at you. They’re so tightly packed you can barely pick up Flowey’s yellow out of the corner of your eye.

“And it will all be because of you,” Flowey boasts his most pleasant grin. “Thank you, Sans. Good bye.”

The bullets fire.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Making peace at last.

The flower’s first mistake had been telling you his plans. _His second was not running when he had the chance._

The bullets fire, sending up a mushroom cloud of powdery snow. Flowey searches the mist expectantly, looking for a pile of dust amongst a bullet-ridden jacket or scarf, but is only met with barren soil peppered with tiny craters of every pellet that missed its mark.

“Wha-“ 

Your fist is around his stem before he can finish the word.

Flowey chokes out a gasp as he whips his head around to face you. His expression ricochets from bewilderment to shock. You can see pure terror in his eyes. No doubt he can see the Hell in yours.

“W-what are you doing?!” He screams, his voice faltering.

You squeeze a little tighter, but don’t respond.

Something beyond feeling or emotion spurred you to wink out of the way. Something deeper than instinct, something almost _primal._

It was a silent command, an invisible force driving you. There was no arguing against it, for in this moment it was simply a fact as undeniable as the force of gravity. The only truth in the world right now was that this weed was going to be stopped right here, right now, no discussion or debate. Nothing else mattered, noting else _existed_ beyond this solitary objective. You were going to end. Him. _This. Instant_.

“You idiot!” The flower struggles against your grasp, but can’t escape. Your grip is too strong. “I was going to win! Just let me win!”

“No,” you find words at last and you say them with a force unparalleled. “I cannot- I WILL not let you destroy what’s left of the Underground if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

Still squirming, the weed conjures a box of bullet seeds around the both of you and prepares to fire. You snap your fingers with your free hand and four skulls of some demonic creature materialize, blasting the seeds away in beams of pure energy without a second’s hesitation. It may have been overkill, but it got the job done.

Frozen in horror, the flower can’t tear away from your eyes, flickering between a fiery yellow and electric cyan. Even you can tell they’re filled with determination unmatched by any human. The skulls float around you, waiting, observant. Flowey tries to work his mouth but cannot speak.

“I finally figured out why I can’t go through with it,” you go on, grabbing the flower with both hands, your voice deadly cold and serious. “I may have nothing left here, but just because I’m too far gone doesn’t mean I’m about to leave this life if I know everyone else is still in danger from _you._ I fought the human to protect them, and I’ll fight you too. No more waiting until it’s too late to intervene! If I did that again, it would be the most unforgivable mistake I ever make!”

You lean back with all your might and _pull_. “I will never give you the CHANCE hurt them!”

“N-No! NOOO!” Flowey fights back, resisting you with everything he’s got. “S-STOP! DON’T! I don’t know what will happen to me if I die for good, a-and I’m not going to find out!”

Desperate to not be uprooted, the weed launches vines and creepers at you, wrapping around your arms, legs and body as a last-ditch effort to even his odds in the life or death tug-of-war. 

That was Flowey’s final mistake.

“Don’t worry,” you grunt through gritted teeth. “ _I’ll make sure to meet you in Hell._ ”

You set your hands ablaze.

The flower shrieks in agony as the fire races down his stem and into the earth, burning every tendril connected to him. You’re immune to your own flames, but that doesn’t stop the vines entangling you from going up in cinders. Without the restraint, your weight wins over and you fall back, tearing the weed out of the ground in the process.

The screams fade and its echoes dissipate into the trees. You lie on the dirt and breathe for a while before remembering to check your watch, frantically counting the seconds. A minute passes… and everything stays the same. Flowey really couldn’t Reload after all. You let out a sigh.

There was no sense of relief, no triumph, or satisfaction, or peace for what you had just done. Of course not. You don’t know why you expected any. 

Tenderly, you get to your feet and brush of the grit. The Gaster Blasters still hover around you, expectant and knowing, their eyes nonjudgmental as they wait for your next command.

You glance down at the flower still clutched in the death-grip of your hand. Its face is blank and already the leaves are shriveling up and the petals are beginning to wilt. There is neither pride nor contempt in your gaze. It’s only as dangerous as any other flower now.

You guess Flowey was right in a sick twisted way, about you needing him, but not for the reasons he gave. If he was keeping you alive, you know now it was only so _you_ could make sure _he_ never harmed anyone else, but now he was gone for good…

You look over your shoulder toward the general direction of Snowdin, and beyond that, Waterfall and Hotland. It was almost surreal- the Underground had faced tragedy, but despite everything, it had pulled through. The remaining monsters, though few, were strong and could get by on their own. And if not, they had each other. Thanks to you they were finally safe from the last potential threat that they would never know existed, but deep down in your soul you knew they’d be just as okay without you from this point on.

You could finally go without regrets.

You gaze at the sky as if searching for something, Flowey’s words still ringing in your ears.

_”No more mistakes, no more trouble to others, no more fighting to feel, and hey! You’ll get to be with your brother again. Doesn’t sound like a bad deal to me at all.”_

“Yeah…” you agree. “Looks like this is end of the line...”

A pause.

“Hey, kid?” you address no one in particular. “I know you can’t hear me… or see me… but for what it’s worth, don’t... don’t Reset for a while, okay? I know you haven’t in the last six months, but just in case… hold off a little longer, if you don’t mind… I’m overdue for a well-deserved break...”

You look to the skulls. As if reading your thoughts, they stop circling and each take a spot on a cardinal point.

_It won’t hurt if you do it fast._

“Go ahead,” you nod, pulling one last smile. It didn’t feel forced or fake either, more like… contented.

The Gaster Blasters open their jaws, slowly building up light in their mouths. You touch the red scarf around your neck one last time, determined to commit its texture to memory before it’s nothing but ash.

“Heh… see you soon, Papyrus,” you whisper, and close your eyes, as your world goes blinding white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who has kudo-d, bookmarked, or simply kept coming back to make it this far. 
> 
> Thank you everyone who has commented giving me your suggestions, critiques, or even just keyboard mashing.
> 
> Thank you for letting me sin and sinning with me.
> 
> Thank you for reading~ <3


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